The Future of Artificial Intelligence: Can machines become sentient (self-aware)

Agreed. I don't think the Laws or Robotics or any other human-derived restrictions will hold if true AGI-type sentience takes place.

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One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous. - Carl Sagan, The Fine Art of Baloney Detection"You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe." - Carl Sagan"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

That rather depends on the implementation fo the upload. A living brain scan where you are still alive while the copy is activated clearly demonstrates this problem.But what about a gradual artificial neuron replacement? How tied into the wetware are we, really, considering that we have never had the ability to actually test that assertion? If we slowly replace neurons, or slowly add to the brain with cybernetic enhancements that are capable of duplicating the same tasks (so that function from dying tissue are taken over by AI hardware as it happens), would that still involve "death?"If you use a destructive brain scan (a scan that destroys the original organ as it scans every neuron for simulation) that preserves brainwaves as they are, and the "copy" is identical in every way to the original, have you "died?" If the difference actually doesn't make a difference...there is no difference.Do you require maintaining consciousness? That's silly - we lose consciousness all the time when we sleep.But again - all of this is speculation based on very little information. We don't know to what degree our consciousness is tied to our wetware brains because we so far do not have the capability to test such a hypothesis. We won't know until we try. And we have no idea what implementations will or will not be possible, if any - all we know right now is that we don't have the technology available right now.But if it is possible, sign me up. I don't have much sentimental attachment to meat and bone - I'd rather be unbound by the requirements of organic life and human thought processes.

I think you might be reading more into my post than is there. I said 'emergent behavior' or 'emergent properties' or just 'emergence' is what is creating 'mind'. It's not woo or mysticism. Because it is not yet known exactly what causes sentience research efforts, for instance IBM, are modeling brains."... and that goes against everything we know about the brain." Surely you jest. Model neurons will probably not be required after we find out what they are doing. Some peeps think it is necessary to investigate what it is that they do. It may not be all that necessary but unfortunately I don't know either.Edited by CosmicChimp, : punctuation

Agreed. I guess my question isn't so much as death as individual conscienciousness. If a copy of my brain is made and put into another biological body/computer/android/etc. I will still identify myself inside my body not inside that other machine. That is the point I am trying to make. It is not like if you upload your brain into a computer your consciencessness automatically jumps into that computer. Does this make sense? Yes, I think this may be the only possible way of maintaining my own consciousness being. If you identify yourself as you than the answer is no. Agreed. Agreed. But will our consciousness jump into a machine just because we make a copy of it there as is implied in a neural upload? I think not.I agree that if we conduct a gradual replacement process as you mention above that would be one of the only possible way of maintaining our own individual consciousness. Agreed. When the technology comes along, I am sure someone will be a guienea pig.

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One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous. - Carl Sagan, The Fine Art of Baloney Detection"You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe." - Carl Sagan"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

Whole brain modelling may be required to unpick sentience while we study it, but I see little reason to believe there's anything going on that is more than it appears. Emergence from the simple components is probably the answer; the requirement for particular wetware with particular molecules and structures of the brain is a claim without evidence. Once you get as far as Penrose's silly insistence that "quantum tubules" are the seat of consciousness you're just rebranding mysticism in a pretty scientific dress. As far as we understand the behaviour of neurons they do not a single thing that cannot be done with a normal computer (as can be proved mathematically). Further, everything we know how works in the brain operates by the complex interactions of high level components not the low level vageries of how it is constructed.

I think you may be right about wetware (wet-lab chemistry?) and neuron cells being replaced by sophisticated computer modeling. IBM is using a simulation in a supercomputer, and have created a brain, I read in a popular science article, that is comparable to the optical cortex of a cat.