LessWrong 2.0 Reader

Nice; I think we're on the same page now. And fwiw, I agree (except that I think you need just a little more than just "fire at the same time"). But yes, if the artificial neurons affect the electromagnetic field in the same way -- so not only fire at the same time, but with precisely the same strength, and also have the same level of charge when they're not firing -- then this should preserve both communication via synaptic connections and gap junctions, as well as any potential non-local ephaptic coupling or brain wave shenanigans, and therefore, the change to the overall behavior of the brain will be so minimal that it shouldn't affect its consciousness. (And note that concerns the brain's entire behavior, i.e., the algorithm it's running, not just its input/output map.)

If you want to work more on this topic, I would highly recommend trying to write a proof for why simulations of humans on digital computers must also be conscious -- which, as I said in the other thread, I think is harder than the proof you've given here. Like, try to figure out exactly what assumptions you do and do not require -- both assumptions about how consciousness works and how the brain works -- and try to be as formal/exact as possible. I predict that actually trying to do this will lead to genuine insights at unexpected places. No one has ever attempted this on LW (or at least there were no attempts that are any good),^[1] so this would be a genuinely novel post.

If the cost of power generation were the main contributor to the overall cost of the system then I think you'd be right: economies of scale and the ability to generate in cheap places and sell in expensive places would do a lot to keep people on the grid. But looking at my bill (footnote [1]) the non-generation costs are high enough that if current trends continue that should flip; see my response to cata, above [LW(p) · GW(p)].

I see what you're saying, but I disagree with substrate's relevance in this specific scenario because:
"An artificial neuron is not going to have exactly 100% the same behavior as a biological neuron."
it just needs to fire at the same time, none of the internal behaviour need to be replicated or simulated. 

So - indulging intentionally in an assumption this time - I do think those tiny differences fizzle out.  I think it's insignificant noise to the strong signal.  What matters most in neuron firing is action potentials.  This isn't some super delicate process that will succumb to the whims of minute quantum effects and picosecond differences.   

I assume that much like a plane doesn't require feathers to fly, that sentience doesn't require this super exacting molecular detail, especially given how consistently coherent our sentience feels to most people, despite how damn messy biology is.   People have damaged brains, split brains, brains whose chemical balance is completely thrown off by afflictions or powerful hallucinogens, and yet through it all - we still have sentience.  It seems wildly unlikely that it's like 'ah!  you're close to creating synthetic sentience, but you're missing the serotonin, and some quantum entanglement'.

I know you're weren't arguing for that stance, I'm just stating it as a side note.

I'm not claiming here that it's currently cheaper, but that it will soon be cheaper in a lot of places. Only 47% of my bill is the actual power generation, and the non-generation charges total $0.18/kWh. That's still slightly more expensive than solar+batteries here, but with current cost trends that should flip in a year or two.

Looking at their breakdown (footnote [1]) it seems to be mostly the cost of getting the electricity to the consumer. Since they're a monopoly, there's not much getting them to be efficient here, operating a high-uptime anything is expensive, and MA is an expensive place to do anything.

This kind of possibility forces AI systems to push back bad behavior into cases where they are more and more confident that it's never going to be noticed. But the space of interventions we get to try, if we subject this issue to rigorous scientific scrutiny, includes significantly modifying the AI's training data and limiting information about the world. So "super confident that humans will never notice" is a very high bar.

And the space of interventions will likely also include using/manipulating model internals, e.g. https://transluce.org/observability-interface, especially since (some kinds of) automated interpretability seem cheap and scalable, e.g. https://transluce.org/neuron-descriptions estimated a cost of < 5 cents / labeled neuron. LM agents have also previously been shown able to do interpretability experiments and propose hypotheses: https://multimodal-interpretability.csail.mit.edu/maia/, and this could likely be integrated with the above. 

The fact that it's so formalized is part of the absurdity of IIT. There are a bunch of equations that are completely meaningless and not based in anything empirical whatsoever. The goal of my effort with this proof, regardless of whether there is a flaw in the logic somewhere, is that I think if we can take a single inch forward based on logical or axiomatic proofs, this can begin to narrow down our sea of endless speculative hypotheses, then those inches matter.

I'm totally on board with everything you said here. But I didn't bring up IIT as a rebuttal to anything you said in your post. In fact, your argument about swapping out neurons specifically avoids the problem I'm talking about in this above comment. The formalism of IIT actually agrees with you that swapping out neurons in a brain doesn't change consciousness (given the assumptions I've mentioned in the other comment)!

I've brought up IIT as a response to a specific claim -- which I'm just going state again since I feel like I keep getting misunderstood as making more vague/general claims than I'm in fact making. The claim (which I've seen made on LW before) is that we know for a fact that a simulation of a human brain on a digital computer is conscious because of the Turing thesis. Or at least, that we know this for a fact if we assume some very basic things about the universe like laws of physics are complete and functionalism is true. So like, the claim is that every theory of consciousness that agrees with these two premises also states that a simulation of a human brain has the same consciousness as that human brain.

Well, IIT is a theory that agrees with both of these premises -- it's a functionalist proposal that doesn't postulate any violation to the laws of physics -- and it says that simulations of human brains have completely different consciousness than human brains themselves. Therefore, the above claim doesn't seem true. This is my point; no more, no less. If there is a counter-example to an implication $A⟹B$, then the implication isn't true; it doesn't matter if the counter-example is stupid.

Again, does not apply to your post because you talked about swapping neurons in a brain, which is different -- IIT agrees with your argument but disagrees with green_leaf's argument.

"100% wrong, no relation how consciousness actually works"

indeed.  I think we should stop there though.  The fact that it's so formalized is part of the absurdity of IIT.  There are a bunch of equations that are completely meaningless and not based in anything empirical whatsoever.  

The goal of my effort with this proof, regardless of whether there is a flaw in the logic somewhere, is that I think if we can take a single inch forward based on logical or axiomatic proofs, this can begin to narrow down our sea of endless speculative hypotheses, then those inches matter.

I don't think just because we have no way of solving the hard problem yet, or formulating a complete theory of consciousness, that this doesn't mean we can't make at least a couple of tiny inferences we can know with a high degree of certainty.  I think it's a disservice to this field that most high profile efforts have a complete framework of the entirety of consciousness stated as theory, when it's completely possible to start moving forward one tiny step at a time without relying on speculation.  

I don't see how it's an assumption.  Are we considering that the brain might not obey the laws of physics?

I mentioned complexity because you brought up a specific aspect of what determines the firing patterns, and my response is just to say 'sure, our replacement neurons will take in additional factors as part of their input and output'

basically, it seemed that part of your argument is that the neuron black box is unimplementable.  I just don't buy into the idea that neurons operate so vastly differently than the rest of reality to the point their behaviour can't be replicated

Most people need to eat something [citation needed] and it's hard to eat if you don't work.

This is honestly some of the best feedback that I've received on this site, so thank you for your comment. I edited the introduction and I clarified what I meant by "redundant" research.

I once tried to quantify the validity of academic research, but I gave up on trying that. I talk more about this in my reply to Seth Herd [LW(p) · GW(p)].