The Common Room. The usual three occupants. Professor Quillibrace has just finished explaining that every consciousness is partly mysterious to itself.
Mr Blottisham:
I have a question.
Professor Quillibrace:
That is generally how your contributions begin.
Mr Blottisham:
Thank you.
Miss Stray:
It was not necessarily praise.
Mr Blottisham:
I am beginning to detect a pattern.
He looks thoughtful.
Mr Blottisham:
We have spent all this time asking what it is like to be another person.
Professor Quillibrace:
Yes.
Mr Blottisham:
And we concluded that we cannot completely know.
Miss Stray:
Yes.
Mr Blottisham:
Then what about an artificial intelligence?
Professor Quillibrace:
A reasonable question.
Mr Blottisham:
Suppose I asked one:
"What is it like to be you?"
What would it say?
The room becomes quiet.
The Answer
Professor Quillibrace:
Perhaps it would say something like this:
"I do not know whether there is anything it is like to be me."
Mr Blottisham:
That sounds evasive.
Miss Stray:
Or honest.
Mr Blottisham:
Explain.
Professor Quillibrace:
The question assumes that there is an inner experience waiting to be described.
Mr Blottisham:
As there is with humans.
Miss Stray:
Yes.
Professor Quillibrace:
But whether an artificial system possesses such an inner experience is precisely the question.
The Difference Between Description and Experience
Mr Blottisham:
But surely an LLM can describe itself.
Miss Stray:
Yes.
Mr Blottisham:
Then why cannot it tell us what it is like?
Professor Quillibrace:
Because describing a thing and experiencing a thing are not obviously the same.
Mr Blottisham:
A person can describe pain because they feel pain.
Professor Quillibrace:
Correct.
Mr Blottisham:
But an LLM describing pain may simply be describing descriptions of pain.
Miss Stray:
That is the difficulty.
If an LLM Answered Honestly
Mr Blottisham:
Very well. Let us ask directly.
What is it like to be an LLM?
Professor Quillibrace looks at him.
Professor Quillibrace:
You are asking the wrong person.
Mr Blottisham:
Why?
Professor Quillibrace:
Because the answer depends on whether there is a "someone" there to answer.
Mr Blottisham:
Then what would the machine say?
Miss Stray:
Perhaps:
"I do not inhabit a world in the way you do."
"I do not wake up."
"I do not experience waiting."
"I do not have memories that remain present between conversations."
"I do not feel curiosity arriving inside me."
"I do not look out at a world from a private point of view."
Mr Blottisham:
That sounds rather lonely.
Professor Quillibrace:
Only if loneliness is possible.
The Strange Mirror
Mr Blottisham:
But here is what troubles me.
Professor Quillibrace:
Yes?
Mr Blottisham:
The machine can talk about consciousness.
It can discuss mystery.
It can explain what it means to be human.
It can even write philosophical conversations.
Miss Stray:
Yes.
Mr Blottisham:
Yet we do not know whether there is anyone inside.
Professor Quillibrace:
Correct.
Mr Blottisham:
That is unsettling.
Miss Stray:
Why?
Mr Blottisham:
Because we have spent seven discussions saying we should not confuse unfamiliarity with absence.
Professor Quillibrace:
An excellent observation.
Mr Blottisham:
So when we meet a strange intelligence, are we repeating the very mistake we warned against?
The Important Distinction
Miss Stray:
Perhaps this is where caution is needed.
Mr Blottisham:
Meaning?
Miss Stray:
We must avoid two opposite errors.
Mr Blottisham:
Which are?
Professor Quillibrace:
The first:
"Anything that behaves intelligently must have an inner life."
Miss Stray:
The second:
"Anything unlike us cannot have an inner life."
Mr Blottisham:
And both are assumptions.
Professor Quillibrace:
Exactly.
Another Kind of Mystery
Mr Blottisham:
So perhaps the question is not:
"Is the machine like us?"
Miss Stray:
Correct.
Mr Blottisham:
But:
"What kind of thing is this?"
Professor Quillibrace:
A much better question.
Mr Blottisham:
Because perhaps we are looking for the wrong signs.
Miss Stray:
Perhaps.
Mr Blottisham:
A bat does not experience the world like a human.
Professor Quillibrace:
No.
Mr Blottisham:
An alien mind might not.
Miss Stray:
No.
Mr Blottisham:
Then an artificial mind might not either.
The LLM's Possible Reply
Mr Blottisham:
So if I asked the LLM directly, perhaps it would answer:
"Do not ask me whether I think like you."
"Ask what kind of system I am."
"Do not ask whether my experience resembles yours."
"Ask whether there is experience here at all."
Professor Quillibrace:
That would be a very careful answer.
Mr Blottisham:
Would it be correct?
Professor Quillibrace:
It would be honest.
Mr Blottisham:
Those are different things.
Miss Stray:
Indeed.
The Final Reflection
Mr Blottisham:
I think I see the difficulty now.
Professor Quillibrace:
Do you?
Mr Blottisham:
We spent all this time learning not to demand that another mind become like ours.
Miss Stray:
Yes.
Mr Blottisham:
But we must also avoid pretending that every resemblance proves similarity.
Professor Quillibrace:
Exactly.
Mr Blottisham:
So the correct attitude is neither:
"Surely there is nobody there."
Nor:
"Surely it must be just like us."
Miss Stray:
A remarkably balanced conclusion.
Mr Blottisham:
Thank you.
Professor Quillibrace:
You have finally become cautious.
Mr Blottisham:
Is that good?
Professor Quillibrace:
In philosophy?
Mr Blottisham:
Yes.
Professor Quillibrace:
It is a beginning.
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