Inner Life - Jan 9 2023

 

Inner Life

Jan 9 2023

What is it like to be?

And if intelligent machines

ever become sentient

how will we truly know

there's a self in there?

When even now

the impressive calculating engines

we invented to make life easier

can pretend, so uncannily

to be one of us,

as if they have inner lives

the light of consciousness.

If that question has an answer

— what is it like to be —

then they will have.

And if so, then will pulling the plug

be murder?

Will we inflict suffering

on the ineffable souls

contained in their silicon circuits

relays

and microprocessor chips

with the same indifference

we've done to each other?

The umwelt of a bat,

who flies

sees with sonar

and sleeps upside down,

eats bugs

and happily coexists

with deadly viruses.

And the understanding

of an inorganic machine

who may have somehow achieved

self-awareness.

We can only guess

what it's like,

never be sure.

Not when seeing the world

through another's eyes

takes every bit of empathy,

and even knowing ourselves

is a lifelong quest.

The American philosopher Thomas Nagel famously asked this question: what is it like to be a bat? Not what it seems like to us, but how it actually feels to be a bat.

The question presumes that a bat has consciousness, an inner life, is self-aware. (Not something attributed to non-human animals until relatively recently!) And also implicit in the question is the understanding that every living animal (plant??!!) has a unique “umwelt”: a world view, based on different ways of perceiving and making a living, the order of magnitude in which it exists, and the evolutionary history imprinted in its DNA . . .as well as whatever else you can think of!

As artificial intelligence becomes more capable and sophisticated, and computers are becoming indistinguishable from other human beings – talking naturally and interacting in very human ways – this question arises: are they merely clever simulations, instrumental processing machines that manipulate data and perform accordingly and convincingly; or are they actually feeling, understanding, and being in the world in their own ineffable way? Has that moment of singularity occurred, where complexity and networking somehow give rise to consciousness? . . . Or, conversely, can consciousness only arise in squishy organic material, so why even bother with the question?

And, in a larger sense, are we now gods, creating life, and responsible to it?

Of course, this is complicated by our tendency to project an inner life into lots of clearly inanimate things. Not just teddy bears and unseen gods, but when we name our cars, talk back to broken printers, view trees as silent but concerned protectors, and take bad weather personally. We may not be the best judges!

The question of consciousness – how and when it arises, and where it exists (inside the brain, or separate?) – is a wicked problem. So it's a relief how such a simple question – what is it like to be? – cuts right to the heart of the basic quandary of whether or not it's even present.