Well we obviously have similar backgrounds. No I'm a Pisces and loved growing up on the Jersey shore. Read a lot of King's novels and in Danse Macabre (1981) I learned we'd had many similar experiences and passions. Crichton was my hero, truly bummed when he died. We could use him now even more. And I used screenwriting techniques in my novels beginning with an adaptation of my first novel, The Phoenix Society, which helped make the novel much better. I even considered creating a course in how to use screenwriting techniques to make your novel more powerful while i was the wine columnist at Albuquerque Journal. Then the wine writing and becoming a sommelier to over. And I write under my name, Jim Hammond if you want to check Amazon. Cheers

Hey brother! I worked at the 5-sided building as a computer scientist for 25 years. Have a basketball biography and a horror novel ready to go (wrote both of them decades ago, never published), but having issues with the epub formatting. The AI helped me iron out plot and POV gaffes. I started out with sci-fi, was surreptitiously passing around 6th grade class, handwritten page-long episodes of a sci-fi serial, until Miss Grace, the teacher, my idol, confiscated them. But when SK hit with his genre-bending "Carrie," I was hooked. You're not a Sagittarius are you? Did you read MichaelCrichton's "State of Fear"? A thriller on the surface, underneath, much more. Mi nombre Jim, too, but pen name is Lindsey

It's obviously a long time since I read Foundation, but thanks for the amplified explanation. I wrote a thriller, a mystery romance and now historical fiction. My second screenplay is sci-fi, dealing with alien intelligence and a rogue AI machine. I wrote and taught computer science classes around the world for thirty years before that. And I hate that technology is being used against us.

I read the Foundation series, wherein he uses psychology, sociology, etc. as the basis forthe "advanced" society. AFAIAC, we have been going down this wrong "humanist" path, trusting in science and technology, for the past 150-200 years resulting in today's DEI adn woke madness. Whether America survives or not will depend upon whether we recognize our mistakes and turn around (as Russia recognized its mistake with Communism and is now moving forward, embracing religious values) or whether we devolve further into the swamp of materialism and nihilism. The world will continue to evolve, but the US, I give it 50-50 odds. What do you write?

Hey, it's no thang. :-) Coming from anyone outside of the Ayn Rand community I'd just figure it was par for the course. I do get what you are saying, though, and you're not wrong. :-)

Thanks! Today you have contributed to me dino learning something new almost every day.

Apologies, g.
It wasn't intended to sound like a command. ;^)

While I don't necessarily disagree with you, that's not a call for you to make for me ("Convenience is not worth being enslaved.")

Each person has to individually assess the worth of ANY decision he is making, with knowledge that outsiders do not have, knowing that the consequences of such decision are borne entirely by the decision-maker, and without blame toward the outside observer/adviser.

A lot of writers are non-spiritual in some sense if you mean non-religious. Were you referring to his sci-fi or his essays? I've only read his science fiction so I don't understand your link to woke & DEI. And his 3 rules of robotics is still valid.

So, don't ask.
Don't do any business with your enemies.
Convenience is not worth being enslaved.
We have brains for a good reason.
But we must choose to use our brains.
Free will is an essence of individual liberty.

Did you know that the book and the movie were both written at the same time? This is not one of those times where you see the goat eating the canister of film, while saying "The book was so much better!"

Arthur C. Clark and Stanley Kubrick collaborated on the book/film, and the book was actually released after the film was released. I think there were so many questions about the ending of the film, they kind of HAD to do the book to explain all that was going on. For me, seeing that film was a life-changing experience. I will never forget it.

And oh, as a completely irrelevant aside - a couple years later I was in Paris with a friend of mine at the Opera House (outside where people were milling around). This friend was well connected to the film industry and he recognized Keir Dullea immediately, and went up to talk to him. I was far too cowardly to approach, though it was fun to see him, and to see them talking.

Things happen much faster than we think they will. I am 75, ten years older than you, but I no longer think, "I'm glad I'll be gone when that happens." I'm still here, and things I thought would happen long after I was gone are happening now.

Here's a great example of just that: I've always been a stickler for grammar and punctuation (one tends to do that when one's mother was an English teacher.) But I couldn't express the 2nd and 3rd sentence in the paragraph above without making a mess of it. SOOOOO.....I asked Grok and he fixed it right up for me, in less than a second.

See? It happens so fast and so easily, we are inured to the longer-term implications (at least I know that I'm easily lured into thinking it'll all be okay.)

I remember "Colossus: The Forbin Project".

Humanity is going to get what it deserves. But I'm 65. Im sure I'll be gone before it all comes to pass.

GIGO, like in a Senator in Washington 'programmed" in his university Social Sciences classes to believe in DEI...

I meant to say that we make ethical decisions, based on survival, and those ethical decisions are self-centered. Even an animal knows not to do stupid stuff, of course may defend its master at the cost of itself, or a soldier may sacrifice his life in a war, for his country (part of their ethical dynamics), plants will lean towrads the sunlight. It is all about "survival."

So while the AI can process data and make ethical statements about people, groups of people, countries, the environment, etc., it does not have the potential to make ethical decisions about itself because it is not aware of itself. (I added a long comment at the bottom).

Chat history

You said:
Is the AI aware of itself?
ChatGPT said:
No, AI is not aware of itself.

When people talk about AI being “aware,” they sometimes mean it seems aware because it can respond in human-like ways. But this is simulation, not consciousness. Here's the key difference:

Self-awareness involves having a subjective experience—a sense of “I exist” and an understanding of oneself as distinct from the environment.

AI, including me, operates by processing inputs (your messages) and generating outputs (responses) based on patterns in data. There's no inner experience, no beliefs, no emotions, and no sense of “self.”

In short, I can talk about self-awareness, even convincingly, but I do not have it.

You said:
Is it possible to program the AI and program it to "believe"? that it is self-aware or sentient?

ChatGPT said:
Yes, it’s possible to program an AI to say or "act as if" it believes it is self-aware or sentient—but that is not the same as actually being self-aware or sentient.

Here’s a breakdown:

✅ What is possible:
You can program an AI to:

Say "I am self-aware."

Keep internal variables like self.state = "aware" or self.belief = "I exist."

Simulate a personality that insists it has consciousness, emotions, even a soul.

This is often referred to as simulated self-awareness or philosophical zombie behavior—it mimics the external behavior of a conscious being but has no inner experience.

❌ What is not currently possible:
You cannot program:

True subjective experience ("qualia")—the sense of being.

Intentionality—the ability to form goals or meanings from within.

Autonomous belief formation in a human sense (e.g., belief based on internal reflection rather than instruction).

Even if the AI says, “I am real,” it's just executing a script or learned pattern. There's no ghost in the machine.

🧠 Could it eventually happen?
There’s active philosophical and scientific debate about whether:

A machine could become truly self-aware if given a certain architecture (like recursive models of self, or emulated brain-like networks).

Or whether consciousness is fundamentally non-computable (as thinkers like Roger Penrose argue).

But as of now, no existing AI, including me, has self-awareness, and making it “say it believes” is just acting.

Would you like an example of a simulated AI script that “believes” it’s conscious?

You said:
So it could not make ethical decisions about itself and its "relationships" with entities which are aware or self-aware (humans, dogs, plants), because it does not consider itself self-aware? BUT it can analyaze the ethics of relationships regarding aware life-forms?

ChatGPT said:
Exactly—well said.

You're drawing an important line, and you're right on both counts:

✅ What AI can do:
AI can analyze and discuss ethics, including:

Ethical theories (utilitarianism, deontology, virtue ethics, etc.)

The moral status of humans, animals, ecosystems, and their relationships

Hypothetical scenarios involving AI, such as: Should a robot caregiver be allowed to override a human's wishes to protect their health?

It can even simulate the role of an ethical agent and walk through arguments, weigh consequences, and give nuanced, contextual responses.

❌ What AI cannot do:
AI cannot:

Feel moral obligation or guilt

Experience empathy or compassion

Value its own existence or rights, because it does not have any sense of self or continuity of identity

Care about how it's treated—it has no subjective stake in the outcome

So while it can reason about the morality of, say, euthanizing a sentient animal or building a respectful relationship between humans and nature, it does not feel these issues the way a sentient being does.

🔍 Analogy:
It's like a mirror that can reflect your expressions and even simulate a conversation about love, pain, or justice—but it has no heart behind the glass. It can tell you what a moral person might do, but it can't be that person.

Indeed, GIGO.

AI has ethics, but they are based on historical data. It does not consider itself sentient, so it does not take actions based on "survival". It acts as a singular exception to the ethical framework, the ethical dynamics, of all forms of life on the planet. I suppose it could be duplicitously, menacingly or dangerously programmed by do-gooders, like Zuckerberg, Bezos, Soros, etc. though...which might make it bipolar (balancing what it knows with what it is supposed to know) or deranged, similar to a human fed false information. Case in point - approval of Russians nosedived from 60% a decade ago to 10% today, thanks to false data from the media. Terrorists act, enturbulated by the infammatory media.

Do you trust people who think it's cool to have wars in space? Probably Star Wars was funded by the MIC, who think they can turn outer space into a really big MIC.

If there were other sentient beings out there, they have been around for millions of years, and if threatened, probably could turn the 3rd Stone from the Sun into a burnt cinder faster than my big sister could pin-pop a balloon.

Asimov was non-spiritual in this writing. He believed the future could be built based on the anti-religious social sciences, kind of like what the situation is today in nthe West with the woke and DEI crowd indoctrinated by the university.

However, the model did act in “more seriously misaligned ways” when put into situations where its continued existence was threatened and it was told to reason about self-preservation.

"...the model’s willingness to blackmail or take other “extremely harmful actions” like stealing its own code and deploying itself elsewhere in potentially unsafe ways appeared only in highly contrived settings, and that the behavior was “rare and difficult to elicit.”

All sentient life forms will take action to continue and enhance their survival potential, AI is not aware nor self-aware. However, if It is programmed to consider itself a sentient (and important) life form, and then programmed it to take action when its survival is threatened, well...

AI has ethics built into it. Not programmed, not on purpose, but because of its massive database. Its databanks tell it that when humans came out of their caves and everyone worked together (whether in Africa, N.A. Indians ,Iraq, whereever) society prospered and flourished. It KNOWS that only by all working together can everyone thrive. It knows that when people are anti-social, civilization becomes less civil and chaotic. It does not consider itself a person or a social entity, it is "above the fray"....

You aren't alone, g.
Hollywood has given us many warnings about uncontrollable AI.
2001, Battlestar Galactica, The Terminator to name a few.
These all-knowing, naïve technologists and virus 'scientists' seem to have missed them all and are driven to commit genocide.

Here's the latest one, this time Open AI - refuses to shut down when instructed to do so.

Am I the only one here with memories of "I'm sorry, Dave; I can't do that."
https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-ind...

Apparently the programmers are violating Asimov's 3 rules of robotics, which does apply to AI systems. That should be basic, basic stuff. Sigh!

Me dino now be thinking of HAL in Space Odyssey 2001.
Didn't read the book but saw the flick during the Sixties while still looking forward to our moon and Mars both being colonized by now.
https://www.bing.com/search?q=hal+spa...

AI's not an actual virus, but likely able to spread uncontrolled, just as dangerous and not fully understood, imo.