AI scientists have mixed opinions on when or if the singularity will happen. The singularity being that point in time when AI surpasses human intelligence. Will AI ever become truly sentient or alive? Can an artificial entity ever be truly alive?

https://www.popularmechanics.com/sci...ty-six-months/

Alan Turing proposed a test for artificial intelligence:

"In 1950 Turing sidestepped the traditional debate concerning the definition of intelligence by introducing a practical test for computer intelligence that is now known simply as the Turing test. The Turing test involves three participants: a computer, a human interrogator, and a human foil. The interrogator attempts to determine, by asking questions of the other two participants, which is the computer. All communication is via keyboard and display screen. The interrogator may ask questions as penetrating and wide-ranging as necessary, and the computer is permitted to do everything possible to force a wrong identification. (For instance, the computer might answer “No” in response to “Are you a computer?” and might follow a request to multiply one large number by another with a long pause and an incorrect answer.) The foil must help the interrogator to make a correct identification. A number of different people play the roles of interrogator and foil, and, if a sufficient proportion of the interrogators are unable to distinguish the computer from the human being, then (according to proponents of Turing’s test) the computer is considered an intelligent, thinking entity."

https://www.britannica.com/science/h...l-intelligence

No computer has ever passed this test.

i hope i live long enuff to see AI that is able to write itself better and better, and if possible to become sentient.
i have roughly 30 years to see that - or not.

I personally welcome our AI overlords.

I don't see any reason why machine can't become more intelligent than humans. I don't know if will happen in 6 months, 6 years, 60 years, or maybe never (e.g., civilization collapses due to WWIII, halting all tech progress). I also don't know what "truly" sentient means. If you did have an AI that was truly sentient, how could you tell?

I do notice that current LLMs are capable of answering just about all forum post-sized programming questions (yes, they sometimes answer wrongly, but so do humans).

A machine that is self aware. It can laugh, cry, dream, and wonder about its place in the Cosmos. It can feel wonder, joy, and a sense of mystery when it looks at a butterfly coming out of a chrysalis. It has emotional intelligence.

Laughing and crying are physical actions, perhaps a machine could do those if equiped with appropriate hardware. For all the others, I repeat my question: how could you tell?

It writes poetry that is deep and spiritual. It composes haunting music that isn't terrible. I guess you'd need to befriend it and interview it extensively. Is the being the same as a human other than it's based on silicon?

Why the AI should feel like an human, can't it be free to identify as itself?

Haha! Well-said. I was trying to argue that human-like emotions could help to establish sentience. But, sure. Artificial sentience could have characteristics that may be completely alien to us. That would be even harder to define. Maybe we will never know when *they* start plotting against us.

Yes AI will become truly sentient.
About AI becoming alive, well it depends on our definition of alive.
Can it be truly alive? Well yes it can be, but I personally do not believe it so. That will not stop many of us from treating it as alive, though.

Having said that, we are far far far far from singularity. Current AI, LLMs and others, will surpass human capabilities in one or two aspects. But not in all. Already calculators and computers can do basic arithmetic better than us. The same will happen with LLMs too. But LLMs are not general AI. That will take time.

AI will have no conception of right or wrong, apart from what we tell it.

long after we pass the point of singularity (we are not even CLOSE yet) there will be no more danger than there is now. It is not intelligence that is the problem, or Geniuses would rule the world.
The first danger point will be when a very intelligent machine becomes "self aware".
The second is when it becomes selfish!

If we live past those, the final and end point is when it become afraid.

Methinks this article is relevant. An excerpt:

In other words, using AI can lead to brain rot.

Which may indeed lead to a singularity of sorts, and we are walking blithely and willingly into it.

There are companies today who have software that calculates lead-time, does planning and automatically orders materials. I have ordered a circuit board build and assembly all online without speaking with anyone (PCBWay). What happens when systems start ordering copies of themselves? I think I could get AI to write a program to do that now. Maybe the singularity is already here?

Hi,

I believe the development of biocell computers will excel beyond a digital computer AI driven system eventually. Several companies have developed a biocell/biological system that are able to equal and/or surpass digital with certain tasks.

The big fault of the biocell system is the life of the cells. Eventually you have to replace the the brain of the hardware or just replace the whole unit in some of the companies biocell computer.

This company has developed a biocell computer for $35K;