Abstract
AI is the most rapidly transformative technology ever developed. Consciousness is what gives life meaning. How should we think about the intersection? A large part of humanity’s future may involve figuring this out. But there are three questions that are actually quite pressing, and we may want to push for answers on:
1. What is the default fate of the universe if the singularity happens and breakthroughs in consciousness research don’t?
2. What interesting qualia-related capacities does humanity have that synthetic superintelligences might not get by default?
3. What should CEOs of leading AI companies know about consciousness?
This article is a safari through various ideas and what they imply about these questions.
Seeds of Science is a scientific journal (funded through Scott Alexander's ACX grants program) publishing speculative or non-traditional research articles. Peer review is conducted through community-based voting and commenting by a diverse network of reviewers (or "gardeners" as we call them). Comments that critique or extend the article (the "seed of science") in a useful manner are published in the final document following the main text.
We have just sent out a manuscript for review, "A Paradigm for AI consciousness", that may be of interest to some in the EA community so I wanted to see if anyone would be interested in joining us as a gardener and providing feedback on the article. As noted above, this is an opportunity to have your comment recorded in the scientific literature (comments can be made with real name or pseudonym).
It is free to join as a gardener and anyone is welcome (we currently have gardeners from all levels of academia and outside of it). Participation is entirely voluntary - we send you submitted articles and you can choose to vote/comment or abstain without notification (so no worries if you don't plan on reviewing very often but just want to take a look here and there at the articles people are submitting).
To register, you can fill out this google form. From there, it's pretty self-explanatory - I will add you to the mailing list and send you an email that includes the manuscript, our publication criteria, and a simple review form for recording votes/comments. If you would like to just take a look at this article without being added to the mailing list, then just reach out (info@theseedsofscience.org) and say so.
Happy to answer any questions about the journal through email or in the comments below.