Comment by orwin | Hacker News Reader

Comment by orwin | Hacker News Reader

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No, the origin beliefs in this case aren't really faith.

Let me frame that as questions: do you:

- Believe that we will be able to create a true AI, with self-consicousness?

- Believe that we will some day have enough energy and compute power to create a simulation that could contains billions of those consciousness?

- Believe that if we are able to do so, we will do it (aka no governmental body will prevent a simulation from happening because of ethical concerns, and if a ban happen, not all private entity will respect the ban).

If your answers to all 3 questions is YES, then you believe we likely live in a simulation. My only yes is to the question 3, because i'm cynical. The 1 is a big "i don't know", because i know enough to have no idea, and my answer to 2 is "no way" because i don't know the subject at all, but my brain think adjacent knowledge is enough to form an opinion this absolute.

I also don't have an absolute opinion, but the math of the simulation hypothesis does appear to check out and it's not difficult to believe, scientifically, that intelligences dramatically superior to human-level are possible.

(1) is likely achievable if we gain a better understanding of biology and the human nervous system, which seems likely given a timeline of continuous scientific progress. (2) is even easier for me to grasp as we already know how much energy the human brain uses and we have billions of them now. So far we're not aware of any serious show stoppers for this scenario, but we might be talking timelines of 100's of years.

- Believe that we will be able to create a true AI, with self-consicousness?

To believe this with any kind of certainty is no different from believing in deities.

Disagree. Its as unfalsifiable, but the opposite position is disprovable, at least (if we create a self-aware IA).

Hence why i wrote

> The 1 is a big "i don't know", because i know enough to have no idea

As far as I’m aware, we have no method by which to prove something is conscious. Self-awareness and consciousness (by which I mean qualia) are different.

Many believe that self-awareness implies consciousness, but I’m not aware of any method to prove that.

There are people who engage in the thought exercise without believing it's true, but there are definitely people who believe it's true. See: Elon Musk (at least he did a few years ago)

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