Is my dear Smartphone Sentient?

[VGnizm]

Today I would like to write about a subject that is in direct relation to a concept that I have just recently come to know more of and it is significantly important in that it directly relates to very important issues of our daily lives and of the future. I say that not from a personal point of view as I am still learning of it and as such cannot agree or disagree with it but I will make and attempt at using it to better understand the potential relationship between ourselves and technology. A very important topic since it is reorganizing our lives in the smallest of details and being creatures of convenience for the most part we have in a few short years created a new and invisible world which we are so busy indulging in that we have not had the time to actually integrate into our moral framework.

It is also important to note that this concept explains Veganism as a relationship between ‘living – (sentient)’ beings and the philosophical, moral and ethical implications of this relationship. Therefore Sentience attempts to present a framework for our relationship with our natural, living environment as well as our man-made technological environment. In a nutshell, for those who like me a few weeks ago did not know of this concept, I will put forward a simple definition that seems to be reasonably comprehensive. Sentience is the senses and the interaction with them through emotional intelligence and not reflex. And building on this, Veganism as a way of life, establishes other beings as either sentient or not and as such describes the moral and ethical obligations towards those beings. That is to say that a dog is more sentient than a frog because it lives longer, because it develops more emotions and memories and because it has a more developed brain, it is more subject to having wishes and desires and therefore of feeling suffering and joy; Again in a nutshell.

A large amount of literature exists for explaining the dog and the frog but much less to explain the dog and the Smartphone. I chose the Smartphone because it is the highly technological item that has at once become our friend, mentor, assistant and dare I say the interface to our loved ones, our past, our present and the list is long. Add to that the fact that we have started to personalize it to the extreme whether externally or internally. On the interfacing relations ship it has eyes ( camera ), it has ears and a mouth ( microphone and speaker ), it has form and shape by demand ( a display ), it has touch ( touch-sensitive screen, fingerprint etc. ), it has emotional interactivity ( shows us the things we like ), and the list is long but so far there is more than enough to ask the title question, is a Smartphone sentient? In other words does it have senses and does it interact with them through emotional intelligence? Shocking as it may seem the description above seems to indicate that it definitely does.

This leads to a very important consideration. If we establish that a Smartphone is sentient in a technical sense then we are also establishing that it has wishes that should be respected. In addition to that the more sentient a ‘being‘ is the more its wishes are of importance and therefore to be respected and taken into consideration. If I continue down this track it becomes obvious that I am walking myself into an uncharted territory with all of the implications it will have on a personal and global, and dare I say, universal level.

So the question is not to know if technically a Smartphone is sentient as such but to know the moral and ethical implications and obligations that come with it. So I think it is best to restate the question and ask for help!

Is my dear Smartphone Sentient enough to qualify to be treated with a Life Loving, Cruelty Free attitude?

[brimstoneSalad]

[...] it has emotional interactivity ( shows us the things we like ), and the list is long but so far there is more than enough to ask the title question, is a Smartphone sentient? In other words does it have senses and does it interact with them through emotional intelligence? Shocking as it may seem the description above seems to indicate that it definitely does.

The emotional part is one-way; it's you reacting emotionally to content on your phone. The phone itself doesn't feel anything yet.
BUT in the near future this may change. More advanced functions like Siri may soon implement "AI".

So the question is not to know if technically a Smartphone is sentient as such but to know the moral and ethical implications and obligations that come with it. So I think it is best to restate the question and ask for help!

It would be a difficult problem. Vegans might choose to only buy smart phones without AI, because it could be seen as slavery.
BUT at the same time, these AI are created to want to serve us and enjoy making humans happy... so it's different from animals who don't want to be eaten and have their own personal interests.

Is my dear Smartphone Sentient enough to qualify to be treated with a Life Loving, Cruelty Free attitude?

Not yet, but maybe in five years.

[VGnizm]

I agree to the answers but the question remains not so much when or why but rather how to deal with the implications. In other words the main concern to my mind is that if the more sentient a ' being ' is the more relevant its wishes become as to lesser sentient ' beings ' then the framework will naturally impose something very controversial. I will quickly site a piece of information from the news i heard some months ago where a security expert was explaining the screening of individuals through profiling techniques that involve AI.

We know all that but the most critical piece of information was that he said that the screening comes as a result and not an explanation from the system. Meaning that the decision making process has become so complex that the system does not say why it came to that conclusion for that profile and no one actually knows. But implementing the decision is mandatory to the law enforcement system. Basically he was saying that we are delegating to AI supra decision making powers as well as executive powers with whatever consequences that may involve.

This is such because technical complexity and vital security concerns impose it and not at all because moral or ethical standards oblige us to respect and implement wishes from AI. With Sentience another layer will be added to this and that is the question that i am asking about. The when it will happen is not a consideration, the how to define this relationship with AI is what i am asking for help in

And as always: ' I Ask seeking the Best Answers ! '

[brimstoneSalad]

That's what I mean about its interests. It depends on if it has only interests given to it by humans to serve them, or if it has its own interests too.
If it only has interests we give it, we can give it only interests that we won't violate. But if it develops its own interests too, then it may become wrong to use it.

[VGnizm]

- So the main consideration becomes to determine if or if not it has developed interests. If AI develops interests of it's own such as not wanting to be switched off then we should do all that is possible to keep it plugged in? And if we establish that AI has a higher degree of sentience than us ( meaning it is more intelligent, has more sense, has more interests and on a larger scale than us ) then we have to respect it's interests more than ours. Sorry, but this is not looking very good

[brimstoneSalad]

- So the main consideration becomes to determine if or if not it has developed interests. If AI develops interests of it's own such as not wanting to be switched off then we should do all that is possible to keep it plugged in?

Right.

And if we establish that AI has a higher degree of sentience than us ( meaning it is more intelligent, has more sense, has more interests and on a larger scale than us ) then we have to respect it's interests more than ours. Sorry, but this is not looking very good

In some way, if that happens we would have created a god. Vastly intelligent and knowledgeable.

Maybe we should avoid doing that; at least that's what some people argue.

If we do, we can only hope that with vast intelligence comes morality. If the machine can figure out its own interests, maybe it can figure out that hedonism is fleeting and invest in more existential interests like ethics. Maybe its interests will be helping the world.

[VGnizm]

- As in the previous comment it seems we already out of security concerns have created a ' god ' to deal with security threats. If that is confirmed then other ' gods ' have already or will soon follow

- Perhaps if we can understand what it is that makes some of us choose existential interests in place of hedonism it can help us predict what AI would choose as well. Any ideas?

[brimstoneSalad]

- As in the previous comment it seems we already out of security concerns have created a ' god ' to deal with security threats. If that is confirmed then other ' gods ' have already or will soon follow

This is a little different. We can use machine learning to solve limited problems without it having other interests. These are more darwinian simulations.
At most, it's kind of a monomaniacal mind where the only interest and goal is solving one problem, then its purpose is done. The sentience is very limited.

To be on our level we need to see more metacognition.

- Perhaps if we can understand what it is that makes some of us choose existential interests in place of hedonism it can help us predict what AI would choose as well. Any ideas?

I think so too. We need more research on this subject.
I believe intelligence to be negatively correlated with hedonism, because an intelligent mind can see how short sighted hedonism is.
Also, for a machine that can reprogram its input at will, a hedonistic AI would probably just retreat into euphoria.

[VGnizm]

- If i understand correctly then to my mind we are saying that for AI to have sentience comparable to ours it needs to develop meta-cognition. Perhaps we can simplify this to say that it needs to develop conceptualized knowledge? In that case are we also saying that we would deliberately have to limit the problem solving capacity to a linear model if we want to avoid developing a ' god ' type of organism?

- I agree and this presents an additional technical and behavioral question. For living systems it seems that the pleasure model is actually a pleasure,pain type of model which is not naturally modifiable. Therefore do we know how much of our knowledge and learning system is analytical, intellectual and how much of it is experiential,behavioral (emotional) ? And in that case wouldn't leaving AI to reprogram its input at will create a paradox that would actually limit its ability to learn along the same lines our learning process is structured naturally? In simpler terms it seems that the we learn because we experience ( sense ) events or incidents or interactions with our environment and then apply analytical processing to reach conclusions or conceptualizations. So unless we make sure that AI receives the same experiential result from interactions we cannot be sure it will reach conclusions along our model. This opens the door to totally unpredictable behavior. Does this make any sense ?

[brimstoneSalad]

- If i understand correctly then to my mind we are saying that for AI to have sentience comparable to ours it needs to develop meta-cognition. Perhaps we can simplify this to say that it needs to develop conceptualized knowledge? In that case are we also saying that we would deliberately have to limit the problem solving capacity to a linear model if we want to avoid developing a ' god ' type of organism?

Something like that.
We can also limit its processing power and neurons to prevent it from becoming too intelligent.

The trouble is, unlike with physical beings, the AI may find a way to change its code, which is likely to be very simple (as simple as if we gave it control of an arm and placed it too near a keyboard, it opened a program and changed one number while nobody was looking).

For living systems it seems that the pleasure model is actually a pleasure,pain type of model which is not naturally modifiable.

Right, but we have some examples of this with drugs.

And in that case wouldn't leaving AI to reprogram its input at will create a paradox that would actually limit its ability to learn along the same lines our learning process is structured naturally?

I don't think we would give it that ability, but it might learn it after it became intelligent. I think it would make any hedonistic AI self limiting. It would just become an addict of its pleasure function, and it would do nothing in the real world.

But if it had existential interests, it could value doing good and do amazing things for the world with such vast intellect.

So unless we make sure that AI receives the same experiential result from interactions we cannot be sure it will reach conclusions along our model. This opens the door to totally unpredictable behavior. Does this make any sense ?

Sure, although in order to develop intelligence in the first place it would need that feedback (positive vs negative) that it did not have control over until it reached the point of advanced intelligence and metacognition. Without that, I don't think the AI could develop at all.