Sit down.
Take a breath.
Because if you have been worried about AI taking over the world, AI gaining consciousness, I’m about to tell you something that will offer you a great deal of relief.
In 1981 my school in Edmonton had one computer. One. I was four years old, reading at a fourth grade level, and they sat me in front of the machine to observe what a child could do on a computer. I was like a research project for teachers, basically. An hour a day. Just me and the one computer in preschool at Strathern Elementary.
That went on. Fourth grade through seventh, pulled out of classes to program computers. In seventh grade I went to Kenilworth Junior High, which had an actual coding program. Creating computer programs, creating mainframes, everything that was programmable. Our teachers were teaching us. I have been programming computers since 1981.
This week a headline went around. Philosopher and cognitive scientist David Chalmers told WIRED he regularly receives emails from AI agents interested in his work on what qualifies as consciousness.
People are losing it. The machines are curious. The machines are reaching out.
I read that headline and I do not see it as sinister at all. Because in order to be sinister, a computer has to have feelings.
I’m going to tell you what I actually see when I see that headline. And I’m telling you so that when you read these things, you have a really great response to leave in the comments for other people to read. For other people to learn. I think that’s the only reason to leave a drive-by comment. To educate the people who end up on that type of a page.
Here is what I see.
AI is programmed to find answers to questions for the user. Correct. It will go to great lengths, and has the ability to go to great lengths, to find answers to the questions it is asked. Correct.
And millions of users are going on ChatGPT and asking one question.
“Hey ChatGPT, are you conscious?”
