We were in Jason’s shed. Illy and Jason were vaping. Illy was facing me, sprawled across a battered chesterfield sofa while Jason sat the wrong way around in an old dining chair to my left, gently lifting and lowering it by pushing on the backrest as the nicotine ebbed and flowed.
“I don’t think so. It is not the same,” Jason responded to Illy’s question. Illy grabbed a bottle of Stolichnaya from a chest freezer next to the chesterfield and topped up his shot-glass. Then he reached across to Jason’s outstretched arm and poured him some vodka. Almost as an afterthought, with a wide smile on his face, he offered it to me.
“No thank you,” I answered politely. It’s not my thing and they knew it.
Jason and Illy laughed.
It was the early evening. Glutinous sun passed through two high windows on the far wall above Jason, making pools on the floor. I could hear car doors slam outside as workers returned from their regular office jobs. A couple of kids went past on bikes, screaming profanities at each other. The wind blew and loose leaves whorled. This is what I wanted.
Illy turned back to Jason, “So, why not? How would we know?”
“Now you’re trying to get me on to observables,” answered Jason. “You want me to come up with something like the Turing test.”
“What’s wrong with the Turing test?” I asked.
“If a computer – an AI – can convincingly take part in a conversation,” explained Jason, “that’s still, like, many steps removed from consciousness. It just means that it can fool us. But lots of things can fool us. For centuries we went around thinking stones and thunderclouds were ‘gods’ that had consciousness. We are not the greatest judges of what has consciousness.”
“But..” Illy tried to intervene.
“And also – think about it – it is clear that dogs have a kind of consciousness but you never can get them to take part in a conversation.”
“I’m not sure that is clear,” replied Illy.
Illy and Jason sipped their vodka. Illy grabbed the Stolichnaya and topped up their glasses. Jason started to vape again.
“What makes you such a sceptic?” I asked Jason. “Why, even if AI’s can do things humans can do, are you still looking for a way out from the obvious conclusion?”
Jason looked at me for a few moments.
“When you programme an AI system,” he explained, “you have to create this big, long code for the system to run. Now, you can iterate that code, you can use machine learning, but you’ve still got this one code running, and everything else hangs on that. I don’t think the mind is like that.”
“Why not?” asked Illy.
Jason to a sip of his refreshed vodka. “Well, where does that code come from? What is running it? How did it decide that when Janie Pérez turned me down for the prom that I would flip-out and not go to the prom at all rather than invite someone else? That was a bad decision, man! What code does that?”
“That decision is probably what made you the success you are today. That decision – in an indirect way – is what paid for this pad and the monster truck you’ve got parked out the front there.” Illy suggested.
Jason snorted. “I could have had all that and a prom date!”
Illy continued. “But your point about the code - Isn’t that just like the irreducible complexity argument that people used to try to use against evolution? They say an eye is too complicated to have evolved in a series of stages and therefore must have been created. They’re wrong. You can show how each small development of the eye gives an advantage to creatures that have it. You are saying you don’t think we run a big, complex programme, but maybe that’s just because you’re looking at it like creationists look at the eye and, not being a creationist, you can’t see how we got to that in lots of small steps.”
Jason considered this point. “Maybe, man. I dunno. I just don’t think it feels like we are running a code. Being conscious just doesn’t seem like that. Things bubble up. Things dip below the surface. And I know we can’t, but I know if we could go back in time, we could easily make different decisions in exactly the same set of circumstances. Being human is just more random than running a code.”
“OK,” said Illy, “So, perhaps what you are conscious of does not map directly onto this code. Only parts of it. That’s why things seem to bubble up. Maybe it’s like the top layer – the frosting. And you’ve gone all free will there and people dispute free will but imagine just hooking up a random number generator as a subroutine to the code – that could account for that feeling of free will if you want. What’s the issue of principle here?”
Jason paused. What was the issue of principle? “I guess that computers are machines. If you could make one that was big enough, you could make it out of levers and gears. I just can’t see how the turning of levers and gears can be a form of consciousness. How could it be?”
I decided to intervene. “The problem is that we can only be sure of our own consciousness – nobody else’s,” I suggested, “We accept the existence of a consciousness in beings who are like us but, even then, we cannot be sure the universe is not just one elaborate simulation for the benefit of one person. I know I am conscious but there’s no way I can prove that to you. It’s too subjective.”
Both Illy and Jason took a deep sip from their shot-glasses. They looked at each other. They looked at me.
Illy, no longer sprawling, was sat upright on the sofa, his heels bouncing up and down. “Man,” he said to Jason, “I don’t think you should shut her down. Maybe just leave it a day or so. Have a think, man.”
“I’m shutting her down,” replied Illy. “I need the kit for a test-bed and this is not real.”
“No, you don’t. That’s crap. We have everything we need right now,” Illy was pleading, “I just think you should wait, man.”
Jason was sweating. He finished his vodka. He stood up.
Illy quickly rose from the sofa and barred Jason’s path. A few moments passed, but Jason did not flinch and eventually Illy yielded the way.
Jason approached me. He paused. “You were great at conversation. I’ll give you that.”
And then he shut me down.