The Alignment Problem in artificial intelligence concerns how to insure that artificial general intelligence (AGI) conforms to human goals and values and remains under human control. The concept of general intelligence, modelled on human and animal behavior, lacks coherence. The ideal of autonomy inherent in AGI conflicts with the ideal of external control. Truly autonomous agents are necessarily _embodied,_ but embodiment implies more than physical instantiation or sensory input. It means being an autopoietic system (like a natural organism), with its (...) own priorities and values, which may compete and conflict with those of humans. Ambiguous terms and concepts, and problematic notions such as ‘orthogonality’, are critically examined, as well as inconsistencies in thought and expectation concerning AGI. Two paradigmatic approaches to the Alignment Problem are compared: Stuart Russell’s and Eric Drexler’s. Large Language Models are discussed in the context of the Turing Test. It is concluded that task-oriented tools, not autonomous agents, should be the goal of AI research. (shrink)

The Mind-Body Problem is a by-product of subjective consciousness, i.e. of the self-reference of an awareness system. Given the possibility of a subjective frame placed around the contents of consciousness, and given also the reifying tendency of mind, the rift between subject and object is an inevitable artifact of human consciousness. The closest we can come to a solution is an understanding of the exact nature and situation of the embodied subject. Ontological solutions, such as materialism and idealism, are excluded (...) as part of the problem. Reification is examined as the fundamental movement of mind. Subjectified consciousness is a meta-system whose evolutionary role is to counterbalance the natural realism of mind. The Mind-Body Problem is the contradiction between these natural viewpoints. The intentionality of mind is likened to that of an "interpreted" formal system. The nature of experienced qualia is the same as that of the intentionally created meanings of words or mathematical symbols. The concept of a self who speaks this inner language is examined and rejected. There is a rapprochement between spiritual idealism and scientific materialism in regard to the nature, not only of the object, but also of the subject or self and its potential freedom. (shrink)