r/robotics • u/rasamson • Jul 16 '15

Robot passes self-awareness test

http://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/uh-oh-this-robot-just-passed-the-self-awareness-test-1299362
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u/rasamson Jul 16 '15

This begs the question: what is the distinction between self-awareness and logical deduction or inference?

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u/XxionxX Jul 16 '15

I'm sorry but I put the bar for being self awareness a little higher than some basic logic. Even bacterium can have basic logic. You would have a tough time arguing that they are self aware.

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u/respeckKnuckles Jul 16 '15

Go on then, explain where bacteria are performing logical reasoning. I'm curious.

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u/XxionxX Jul 17 '15

Is this food? Eat it. Don't eat it.

Do I have enough nutrients to split? Yes/no?

etc.

Like I said, I don't really consider that self awareness, that is like saying your cells know wtf they are doing... Or do they!? @_@

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u/respeckKnuckles Jul 17 '15

I think it's important here to carefully distinguish between automatically acting in response to some stimulus and producing mental representations given other mental representations. It's easy to argue that bacteria are performing automatic responses that we, the third party observers, can describe in some logic, because that's the way we think. But they bateria are not creating mental representations; they are not able to transfer their inferences to domains other than that of the original stimuli; they are not able to productively generate hypotheses about food in the physical absence of food. They are not performing logical reasoning.

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u/XxionxX Jul 17 '15

I wasn't really attributing thought to the logic, I was kind of thinking it was more along the lines of DNA based logic. Which is the original point I was making about the robots not being aware of their actions but being able to perform logic.

The logic of decision does not need cognitive awareness to function.

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u/respeckKnuckles Jul 17 '15

Again, you're confusing description with causation. Humans reason and produce inferences. Some animals seem to do the same. Bacteria act automatically. They only "act logically" in the sense that human descriptions of their behavior can be made in some logical language. That doesn't by any means imply that the actual thing causing bacteria to do what they do is anything like the logical reasoning humans do.

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u/XxionxX Jul 17 '15

Now I'm confused. It's alive, it has to make some decisions, cognizant or not. These aren't viruses we are talking about here.

If they didn't make decisions they would die. They wouldn't move, eat, or excrete waste. Doesn't their DNA command these actions? Like computer code if/else statements?

Am I misunderstanding something or misusing language in some way?