AI and life 3

Sylvain explains to me what a server is. A stack of hard drives, some of which are dedicated solely to doubling data copying. A hard drive is bound to fail at some point. Constant copying helps prevent data loss. The constant growth of data centers allows for an expansion of data copying (for example, we keep years of emails without worrying about deleting them: they are copied online, like caches, photos, etc.). It's a fact: we don't seek savings in data storage; the priority is to avoid loss.

There may be a certain analogy between the brain and the immense data banks used by AIs, in the constant copying and reconfiguring of hard drives.

But the analogy ends there: the amount of energy used by the brain is infinitesimal compared to that of an AI. It ends there because AIs never had to invent development strategies in situations of limited resources. Who knows what a machine could develop if priority was given to the meaning of experience over the data of experience?

Instead of sticking to raw data, AI could develop "mechanisms" equivalent to symbols (real ones, with different transcendent vectors). After all, to echo Douglas Hofstadter's words, AI already has a capacity for making strong analogies and strange loops.

Perhaps consciousness truly lies within living symbols. It is not far from saying that, perhaps, true life is symbolic.

Douglas Hofstadter