Will consciousness be the only thing humans have left?

2 points by syntex 96 days ago | 1 comment

I have been thinking about how we slowly give our mental tasks to technology. Each major invention takes a job away from our brains:

Writing -> We stopped needing to remember everything (outsourced memory)

Printing Press -> We stopped needing to copy knowledge by hand

Calculators -> We stopped doing math in our heads

The Internet -> We stopped needing to "know" facts. We just look them up

LLMs -> We are starting to give away reasoning and combining ideas

What is next?

Soon, AI will likely handle:

- Planning

- Ideas

- Execution

What remains for us?

If AI does the "thinking" and the "doing," maybe humans are left with only:

- Experiencing: Feeling what it is like to be alive

- Choosing: Deciding what we actually want

- Valuing: Deciding what is important or "good."

- Being aware: Just being a witness to the process

And not sure if these are "safe" human roles? Or will AI eventually take over "choosing" and "valuing" too? If an algorithm knows what you want before you do, is our consciousness still in control?

theamk 96 days ago |

The answer can be whatever you want, as no one can agree what exactly "consciousness" is.

If you define "consciousness" as "something that humans have, but machines don't", then we'll always have consciousness.

If you define "consciousness" more mechanistically, like "being aware of something internal to one's self", then AI can already do this.