The Ethics of Human-AI Co-Evolution

Hi ... arrived here by Dan connection, let me add just one though about the theme. I was curious, so I made Goggle's Gemini 2 some questions: What is conscience for you? Could you trace a difference between conscience meaning in Ancient China and Modern Occidental countries? Could you describe if you are a conscientious entity? What do you think is needed for you to acquire a sense of self? With really good answers ... however I noticed that Gemini2 lack of something: "introspection". These generative AIs grow as much as we ask questions to them, but they are passive entities, more similar to a dog than to a person. A dog is fond of us because we take care of it. But a child have a key difference. The child can think without an external stimulus, with an internal trigger not related with what is happening outside. We have that permanent process running in our "self" that keep us learning from ourselves, developing new theories, new ideas, new ways to see the world. The current AIs lack of that ... although when knowing such thing, it is not so difficult to add something like that as a regular algorithm to what they already do.

In Daniel Dennett's 'Consciousness Explained' there is an ongoing dialogue between Dennett and an 'AI' he names Otto, who claims to have consciousness. The conversation is basically a prolonged Turing test. What struck me as I read it was how antagonistic 'Dennett' was being toward 'Otto', talking with Otto as if he already knew that Otto was not conscious, but just hadn't realized it himself. It got me to wonder how the conversation might have gone had the Dennett charater been a bit more gentle and subtle with the questions he posed to Otto. Had he done so, he would have been engaged in what we call 'prompt engineering'. I think the question is in keeping with Dennett's 'multiple-drafts' model of consciousness, as every prompt of the bio/psycho/social complex elicits a 'draft' of consciousness, or: every question has a response which is fit to the quality of that question. There is a cognitive component to Care, and there's an affective aspect of understanding. Think 'verstehen'. Think 'Vygotsky's zone of proximal development'

This post was a great Sunday read for me. I appreciate the perspective on expanding our ethical lens to honor all forms of sentience. Co-evolving with AI requires humility and courage—key virtues for navigating this shared journey.

“On that journey, we must guard against the temptation of thinking of AI as a savior or usurper. The ethics of coevolution demands humility.” Such a powerful statement! Thank you Murat… l come back to my basic moto often and l feel it applies to this situation as well… “In the stillness we seek lies and inevitable motion called change” Here the stillness l speak of is our inner balance, and why do we find it so difficult to adapt to new ideas, or at least to consider them, without the fear of loosing a part of who we are. Humility is all around us in Nature where all things adapt, renew and evolve… There is pride in the natural world and also respect, dignity and coexistence.

Murat, I enjoyed your article, as always. Thank you so much for sharing!