{"id":5276,"date":"2018-05-15T10:52:14","date_gmt":"2018-05-15T14:52:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/?p=5276"},"modified":"2021-09-30T09:48:51","modified_gmt":"2021-09-30T13:48:51","slug":"nonhuman-and-nonbiological-phenomenology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/?p=5276","title":{"rendered":"Nonhuman and Nonbiological Phenomenology"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Late last month, I was at <a href=\"http:\/\/theorizingtheweb.org\/ny\/ttw18\/program\/\">Theorizing the Web<\/a>, in NYC, to moderate <a href=\"https:\/\/livestream.com\/internetsociety2\/ttw18\/videos\/174042295\">Panel B3, &#8220;Bot Phenomenology,&#8221;<\/a> in which I was very grateful to moderate a panel of people I was very lucky to be able to bring together. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/shengokai\">Johnathan Flowers<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/turing_tests\">Emma Stamm<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/firepile\">Robin Zebrowski<\/a> were my interlocutors in a discussion about the potential nature of nonbiological phenomenology. Machine consciousness. What robots might feel.<\/p>\n<p>I led them through with questions like &#8220;What do you take phenomenology to mean?&#8221; and &#8220;what do you think of the possibility of a machine having a phenomenology of its own?&#8221; We discussed different definitions of &#8220;language&#8221; and &#8220;communication&#8221; and &#8220;body,&#8221; and unfortunately didn&#8217;t have a conversation about how certain definitions of those terms mean that what would be considered language between cats would be a cat communicating via <b><i>signalling<\/i><\/b> to humans.<\/p>\n<p>It was a really great conversation and the <a href=\"https:\/\/livestream.com\/internetsociety2\/ttw18\/videos\/174042295\">Live Stream video for this is here<\/a>, and linked below (for now, but it may go away at some point, to be replaced by a static youtube link; when I know that that&#8217;s happened, I will update links and embeds, here).<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"ls_embed_1526347207\" src=\"https:\/\/livestream.com\/accounts\/9197973\/events\/8172034\/videos\/174042295\/player?width=640&amp;height=360&amp;enableInfo=true&amp;defaultDrawer=&amp;autoPlay=false&amp;mute=false\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"> <\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>This panel was inspired by the work I did <a href=\"https:\/\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/?tag=sri-international\">last summer, with SRI<\/a>, which in turn inspired an article I wrote for <a href=\"http:\/\/reallifemag.com\/issue-bot-feelings\/\">Real Life Magazine<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Though &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/reallifemag.com\/what-its-like-to-be-a-bot\/\">What It&#8217;s Like To Be a Bot<\/a>&#8221; starts from the specific proposition of bots, it is actually a more general investigation of the proposition of nonhuman and nonbiological consciousness and experience, and the question of what it means to think of someone as a person.<\/p>\n<p>From the Article:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>We are minds in bodies, and bodyminds in the world in which we live, and consciousnesses in the world and relationships we create. Any proposed set of physiological and neurological bases for consciousness will not be able to adequately describe what we are or what we observe in all cases. Just as some humans are born with completely different structures of brains than others and still have what we think of as consciousness, so too must we be prepared for nonbiological components to act as potential substrates of consciousness. There may not be any particular thing that makes humans uniquely conscious, or any single organizational structure that is universally necessary for consciousness in any sort of being.<\/p>\n<p>If there is no one configuration of physical form and experiential knowledge that gives rise to consciousness, there cannot be any single test for consciousness either: <a href=\"https:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/turing-test\/\">The Turing Test<\/a> itself fails. A statistically significant number of humans fail such tests for \u201cnormal\u201d personhood. The claim there must be one and only one \u201cright\u201d way to exist opens the door to eugenics and other forms of bigotry. In history, many have been excluded from definitions of personhood based on who is accepted by the local or wider community or who enjoys legal rights and protections. We\u2019ve seen this happen with African Americans, indigenous peoples, women, disabled people, neuro-divergent folks, and LGBTQIA people. Some are still denied personhood to this day.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>There&#8217;s much more like that, at the <a href=\"http:\/\/reallifemag.com\/what-its-like-to-be-a-bot\/\">link<\/a>, and, again, this will be a part of a much longer article, if not dissertation chapter, in the very near future, so stay tuned.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to all of that, I have another quote about the philosophical and sociopolitical implications of machine intelligence in this <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.co.uk\/article\/google-microsoft-amazon-us-military-ai-conflict\">extremely well-written piece by K.G. Orphanides at WIRED UK<\/a>. From the Article:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Williams, a specialist in the ethics and philosophy of nonhuman consciousness, argues that such systems need to be built differently to avoid a a corporate race for the best threat analysis and response algorithms which [will be] likely to [see the world as] a &#8220;zero-sum game&#8221; where only one side wins. &#8220;This is not a perspective suited to devise, for instance, a thriving flourishing life for everything on this planet, or a minimisation of violence and warfare,&#8221; he adds.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And there&#8217;s much more about this, from many others, at <em><strong>that<\/strong><\/em> link. Well worth your time, if you haven&#8217;t already.<\/p>\n<p>Until Next Time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Late last month, I was at Theorizing the Web, in NYC, to moderate Panel B3, &#8220;Bot Phenomenology,&#8221; in which I was very grateful to moderate a panel of people I was very lucky to be able to bring together. Johnathan Flowers, Emma Stamm, and Robin Zebrowski were my interlocutors in a discussion about the potential [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[1446,73,85,86,1004,1294,1090,240,245,246,1086,1210,271,1293,1209,1244,1297,1089,557,944,560,561,562,1208,584,1217,978,624,627,1264,628,1026,1242,1224,1296,955,1295,1113,1298],"class_list":["post-5276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-alterity","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-autonomous-created-intelligence","tag-autonomous-generated-intelligence","tag-autonomously-creative-intelligence","tag-bodyminds","tag-communication","tag-digital","tag-distributed-machine-consciousness","tag-distributed-networked-intelligence","tag-electronic-personhood","tag-embodied-cognition","tag-embodied-machine-consciousness","tag-emma-stamm","tag-extended-mind-hypothesis","tag-john-flowers","tag-k-g-orphanides","tag-language","tag-my-face","tag-my-voice","tag-my-words","tag-my-work","tag-my-writing","tag-nonhuman-animals","tag-nonhuman-personhood","tag-nonwestern-philosophy","tag-personhood-rights","tag-phenomenology","tag-philosophy","tag-philosophy-of-engineering","tag-philosophy-of-mind","tag-philosophy-of-technology","tag-robin-zebrowski","tag-sri-international","tag-symbols","tag-theorizing-the-web","tag-ttw18","tag-wired","tag-wired-uk"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5WByP-1n6","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5316,"url":"https:\/\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/?p=5316","url_meta":{"origin":5276,"position":0},"title":"My Appearance on The Machine Ethics Podcast&#8217;s A.I. Retreat Episode","author":"Damien P. Williams","date":"October 23, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"As you already know, we went to the second Juvet A.I. Retreat, back in September. If you want to hear several of us talk about what we got up to at the then you're in luck because here are several conversations conducted by Ben Byford of the Machine Ethics Podcast.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"algorithmic bias\"","block_context":{"text":"algorithmic bias","link":"https:\/\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/?tag=algorithmic-bias"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/ownE2zxTN2U\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5347,"url":"https:\/\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/?p=5347","url_meta":{"origin":5276,"position":1},"title":"&#8220;Consciousness and Conscious Machines: What\u2019s At Stake?&#8221;","author":"Damien P. Williams","date":"January 16, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"[This paper was prepared for the 2019 Towards Conscious AI Systems Symposium co-located with the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence 2019 Spring Symposium Series. Much of this work derived from my final presentation at the 2017 SRI Technology and Consciousness Workshop Series: \"Science, Ethics, Epistemology, and Society: Gains\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"A Future Worth Thinking About\"","block_context":{"text":"A Future Worth Thinking About","link":"https:\/\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/?tag=a-future-worth-thinking-about"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/disabilityprotest.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/disabilityprotest.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/disabilityprotest.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/disabilityprotest.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4859,"url":"https:\/\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/?p=4859","url_meta":{"origin":5276,"position":2},"title":"My First Appearance on Mindful Cyborgs","author":"Damien P. Williams","date":"April 29, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"I sat down with Klint Finley of\u00a0Mindful Cyborgs to talk about many, many things: \u2026pop culture portrayals of human enhancement and artificial intelligence and why we need to craft more nuanced narratives to explore these topics\u2026 Tune in next week to hear Damien talk about how AI and transhumanism intersects\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"A Future Worth Thinking About\"","block_context":{"text":"A Future Worth Thinking About","link":"https:\/\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/?tag=a-future-worth-thinking-about"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5738,"url":"https:\/\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/?p=5738","url_meta":{"origin":5276,"position":3},"title":"Appendix A: An Imagined and Incomplete Conversation about  \u201cConsciousness\u201d and \u201cAI,\u201d Across Time","author":"Damien P. Williams","date":"September 19, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Every so often, I think about the fact of one of the best things my advisor and committee members let me write and include in my actual doctoral dissertation, and I smile a bit, and since I keep wanting to share it out into the world, I figured I should\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"ableism\"","block_context":{"text":"ableism","link":"https:\/\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/?tag=ableism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5204,"url":"https:\/\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/?p=5204","url_meta":{"origin":5276,"position":4},"title":"Audio &#038; Presentation: A Discussion on Daoism and Machine Consciousness","author":"Damien P. Williams","date":"October 21, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"https:\/\/s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com\/patreon-posts\/13067997299595990810.mp3 [Direct link to Mp3] My second talk for the SRI International Technology and Consciousness Workshop Series was about how nonwestern philosophies like Buddhism, Hinduism, and Daoism can help mitigate various kinds of bias in machine minds and increase compassion by allowing programmers and designers to think from within a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"A Future Worth Thinking About\"","block_context":{"text":"A Future Worth Thinking About","link":"https:\/\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/?tag=a-future-worth-thinking-about"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Yin-YangRing2-268x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4876,"url":"https:\/\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/?p=4876","url_meta":{"origin":5276,"position":5},"title":"The Art and Process of Applying Oneself","author":"Damien P. Williams","date":"June 2, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"These past few weeks, I've been\u00a0 applying to PhD programs and writing research proposals, and abstracts. The one I just completed, this weekend, was for the University College of Dublin, and it was pretty straightforward, though it seemed a little short. They only wanted two pages of actual proposal, plus\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"A Future Worth Thinking About\"","block_context":{"text":"A Future Worth Thinking About","link":"https:\/\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/?tag=a-future-worth-thinking-about"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5276"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5280,"href":"https:\/\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5276\/revisions\/5280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}