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  • Contemporary debates on Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) center on what philosophers classify as descriptive issues. These issues concern the architecture and style of information processing required for multiple kinds of optimal problem-solving. This paper focuses on two topics that are central to developing AGI regarding normative, rather than descriptive, requirements for AGIs epistemic agency and responsibility. The first is that a collective kind of epistemic agency may be the best way to model AGI. This collective approach is possible only if solipsistic considerations concerning phenomenal consciousness are ignored, thereby focusing on the cognitive foundation that attention and access consciousness provide for collective rationality and intelligence. The second is that joint attention and motivation are essential for AGI in the context of linguistic artificial intelligence. Focusing on GPT-3, this paper argues that without a satisfactory solution to this second normative issue regarding joint attention and motivation, there cannot be genuine AGI, particularly in conversational settings.

  • Artificial Intelligence is at a turning point, with a substantial increase in projects aiming to implement sophisticated forms of human intelligence in machines. This research attempts to model specific forms of intelligence through brute-force search heuristics and also reproduce features of human perception and cognition, including emotions. Such goals have implications for artificial consciousness, with some arguing that it will be achievable once we overcome short-term engineering challenges. We believe, however, that phenomenal consciousness cannot be implemented in machines. This becomes clear when considering emotions and examining the dissociation between consciousness and attention in humans. While we may be able to program ethical behavior based on rules and machine learning, we will never be able to reproduce emotions or empathy by programming such control systems—these will be merely simulations. Arguments in favor of this claim include considerations about evolution, the neuropsychological aspects of emotions, and the dissociation between attention and consciousness found in humans. Ultimately, we are far from achieving artificial consciousness.

Last update from database: 3/23/25, 8:36 AM (UTC)