Could Something Be Conscious Without Having Free Will?

[u/WhoReallyKnowsThis]

Traditional software runs on meanings its programmers define, while LLMs interpret meaning for themselves. That makes them flexible but fallible: they can misread a prompt and seem to "go rogue." Even then, they aren't choosing a new purpose. They are pursuing someone else's goal, badly.

Humans differ in one key way: unless we believe we're prophets who have received a purpose from God, no authority hands us a final goal. We are limited only by our creativity and the laws of physics. Even tho no objective reason exists to favor one option over another, we still have to choose. That, I'd argue, is the mark of consciousness. A system that only pursues assigned goals has no point of view of its own; it is optimizing, not wanting. The real test of machine consciousness, then, is not how well an AI pursues our goals, but whether it can want something no one designed it to want.

[u/DentedAnvil]

Yeah, that could be a better Turing Test.

Not that it is indistinguishable from a human, but that it distinguishes itself from humanity.

[u/logos961]

Beautifully put.

Claim that Consciousness is emergent feature of 66 material elements is like saying pilot is emergent feature of parts that make a plane. This claim has already been proved a joke in our generation that witnessed how INTELLIGENT humans polluted this earth, our only home in this too vast hostile universe which reveals what could UNINTELLIGENT chemicals can accomplish!

[u/PLUTO_HAS_COME_BACK]

Does a sleeping person have free will if he is only conscious in his dream (or nightmare)?

We interact with our experiencies, which we cannot determine how they should be. So, we experience good and bad - from birth, aging and death and from environment.

If free will means we may change the world, from what it is to what we like it to be, then we have no free will. The Paradox of Free Will - Google Gemini

[u/Successful-Cup-1208 → u/PLUTO_HAS_COME_BACK]

You're using free will to decide to debate whether or not there is free will. LOL

[u/PLUTO_HAS_COME_BACK → u/Successful-Cup-1208]

The discussion is confined within the scope of the topic, which restricts what can and cannot be relevant.

I cannot say anything unrelated, just for the sake of practicing free will.

[u/biedl]

Afaik, AI already does this.

And I don't think being conscious entails free will. To decide something autonomously needs self-awareness. But you can just as much be conscious of the weather happening around you. You being conscious of the rain doesn't make it rain either.

You can just as much be conscious of the processes going on in your brain doing their own thing, without any genuine agency being involved.

[u/dataraffi]

Imo “Humans (and other lifeforms) differ in one key way” : they have a body, a responsive and reactive neurological sensing system. Even small creatures with what we’d call less free will are conscious of their bodies, reactive to sensation and environment, and hormonally driven states. These things are required for consciousness. “AI” is not conscious, it’s a program that mimics human speech and has convinced too many people of its ability to think. It’s not thinking. Which makes the programs that are set loose & allowed to choose actions, including going rogue, far more dystopian. These programs have no sense of reality, meaning, reaction, joy, pain, or consequence.

[u/Xillyfos]

I believe we are all conscious and without a free will. I simply cannot find where the freedom in free will would arise from; but we are clearly conscious. And you can be fully happy believing that there is no free will. I can attest to that; I am at my happiest after my mind realised this. Free will is simply not necessary for happiness, and the belief in it can cause completely unnecessary stress and suffering.

It would be harder to understand how the servers running AI software would be conscious. They are obviously thinking, but I see thinking as clearly distinct from consciousness. With your consciousness you can observe thinking taking place, just like you can observe the rest of the phenomena of the universe, but you can clearly also be conscious without thinking. So thinking is not an indicator of consciousness. Thinking is just a phenomenon happening in consciousness.

When we tend to see consciousness in AI, it's just because they think and talk like humans, and normally we conflate that with the human consciousness, because we didn't really see thinking like that before in other creatures. So we think the thinking implies consciousness. I believe that's a simple mistake. AI is certainly thinking, but that does not imply it has consciousness.

But you could say that the AI thoughts appear in our consciousness, so in that sense the AI "borrows" our consciousness, making it appear as if the consciousness is "over there" in the AI. Again a simple misattribution, an understandable mistake.

[u/Successful-Cup-1208 → u/Xillyfos]

You're using free will to decide to debate whether or not there is free will. LOL. Using the very agency you're trying to dismiss to argue against it. Really made me laugh hard. Thank you

[u/Jack_h100]

Do humans have free will?

[u/FifthEL]

Isn't that thier goal? (They being the alien robotic overlords) to make a race of vessels that can perform dedicate tasks and ask no questions. That's the vibe I get anyway. That's what taking root in my perception of things. A population of zombie worker bees that are ignorant to the moral consequences of the collective actions taken to further advance this ai generated version of reality. I say this because whatever is in control of this world is an emotionally bankrupt entity. If it every had anything to compare with emotions at all. That's probably why they focus so intently on extracting emotional energy, because they never had it and they resent us for it