Was Ava J-Conscious in the Movie, "Ex Machina?" (Spoiler)
Posted: Fri Nov 25, 2016 3:40 pm
This isn't about the bicameral mind, but about Jaynes's definition of consciousness. In Ex Machina, Nathan (Ava's inventor) used Caleb to find out if he'd succeeded in making a conscious AI. He told Caleb to conduct a Turing test on Ava, but in reality Caleb was just an unwitting prop whose only purpose was to see if Ava could trick him into helping her escape. In order to trick him, Ava had to pretend to like him, and pretend to want to go on a "date" with him. Which she does. We know she was only pretending to like him because once she made her escape, she left him there to die.
I think this was an example of, as Jaynes put it, "long-term deceit, which might better be expressed as treachery... [Treachery] is impossible for an animal or for a bicameral man. Long-term deceit requires the invention of an analog self that can 'do' or 'be' something quite different from what the person actually does or is, as seen by his associates."
So from that standpoint, I think Ava must have been J-conscious--assuming Nathan didn't explicitly program her to pretend to like Caleb.
I think this was an example of, as Jaynes put it, "long-term deceit, which might better be expressed as treachery... [Treachery] is impossible for an animal or for a bicameral man. Long-term deceit requires the invention of an analog self that can 'do' or 'be' something quite different from what the person actually does or is, as seen by his associates."
So from that standpoint, I think Ava must have been J-conscious--assuming Nathan didn't explicitly program her to pretend to like Caleb.