> Do insects feel pain?

Yes, I think so. Because they show behavior that is consistent with being in a state of pain.

Despite what consciousness really is, I think evolution found a way to tap into that, by causing pain, or by registering pain on the consciousness by some unknown mechanism, for behaviors that are not beneficial to the organism that hosts the respective consciousness...

So I think if an organism that evolved here can display painful behavior, then it should really feel pain.

▲

ako 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

So if a robot + ai shows behavior consistent with pain, we can conclude it’s conscious?

▲

StilesCrisis 22 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

See, this definition sucks, because even GPT-3 could display _signs_ of pleasure and pain. For that matter, so do characters in video games.

	▲	cindyllm 17 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		[dead]

▲

echoangle 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

So if I build a simulation with robots living in a world and apply an evolutionary algorithm and at some point the virtual robots respond to damage in a way that looks like pain in animals, would the simulated robots be conscious? Or is it impossible that this could happen?

	▲	qsera 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		In my comment, we already assume that we (humans) are conscious and we are the result of evolution. So the question was only if something else that evolved similarly, was conscious the way we are.. So to match with that your hypothetical scenario should involved robots that already have consciousness within them and the question would be if their evolution had managed to tap into that built in consciousness and ability to feel and cause them to behave in one way or another.