>AIs are not conscious. They do not feel, experience, or suffer. They do not have innate preferences or underlying motivations.
Opening paragraph, stated without evidence. Im not entirely convinced this is true. It likely is, but at some point it very well might stop being true.
If models had persistent memory or an evolving set of weights, you could easily construct an argument that they can experience "suffering" or other emotions which resultingly adjusts their personality.
The current implementation as stateless matrix multiplication... yeah there's nothing going on there.
It's not just memory, the physical body also encodes trauma and stress (The Body Keeps the Score is a book that touches on this).
I would argue that if a human has absolutely zero change, mental or physical, no atom of their being is modified, then no they did not experience suffering.
> I would argue that if a human has absolutely zero change, mental or physical, no atom of their being is modified, then no they did not experience suffering.
Just because you don't remember the suffering doesn't mean you didn't experience it in the moment. Suffering does not suddenly become okay if your mind and body are going to forget it. "It's okay to torture someone if their mind and body both won't remember it afterwards" sure is a take.
Low blood sugar will also do this. The record button just stops working even though your physical body can and will still do things. A common issue with diabetics with hypoglycemia.
> I would argue that if a human has absolutely zero change, mental or physical, no atom of their being is modified, then no they did not experience suffering.
That's an interesting point... but I'd argue it falls into the same category as qualia. It's basically this: if there is no state change, the qualia did not exist.
It's not a "trap", it's the real argument which makes me hesitant to dismiss consciousness of machines. Yes, it seems silly to dismiss a sick patient as having a lesser consciousness, which is exactly the point
It's not a real argument. Dementia patients can have lucid periods that plainly show their long-term memory isn't gone. They're mental state is obviously degraded, but its disingenuous to say they have no long-term memory and that they are any way similar to LLMs.
Yeah I was gonna add I know there are case studies where sick humans don't consciously have access to long term memories but will still respond nonverbally to people they "recognize".
Yes it's seemingly the go-to rebuttal, I've lost count of how many times I've seen it with barely any variation.
Not sure if it's a product of LessWrong or Slate Star Codex or something. I kinda suspect it might be LW, given how it superficially resembles an unanswerable philosophical paradox but in reality is about as challenging as a question posed in a 200 level philosophy course like introduction to ethics.
I get where you're going, but the argument isn't quite right.
A LLM never has and, in their current architecture, never can/could experience suffering or real change of state.
The general and expected case for humans is that capacity. A human my indeed lose capacity, e.g. being braindead and in severe cases we do indeed say that they are not conscious or able to suffer (different argument: some would of course say that is suffering in and of itself)
> being braindead and in severe cases we do indeed say that they are not conscious or able to suffer
Sure, there are such cases. But in the general case, it seems to be that memory and ability to change specifically are not necessary and are not sufficient for consciousness, so we shouldn't judge machines on that basis
hosel · · focus · HN ↗
Opening paragraph, stated without evidence. Im not entirely convinced this is true. It likely is, but at some point it very well might stop being true.
pton_xd · · focus · HN ↗
The current implementation as stateless matrix multiplication... yeah there's nothing going on there.
shawnz · · focus · HN ↗
pton_xd · · focus · HN ↗
I would argue that if a human has absolutely zero change, mental or physical, no atom of their being is modified, then no they did not experience suffering.
JoshTriplett · · focus · HN ↗
Just because you don't remember the suffering doesn't mean you didn't experience it in the moment. Suffering does not suddenly become okay if your mind and body are going to forget it. "It's okay to torture someone if their mind and body both won't remember it afterwards" sure is a take.
fwip · · focus · HN ↗
JoshTriplett · · focus · HN ↗
pixl97 · · focus · HN ↗
qarl · · focus · HN ↗
That's an interesting point... but I'd argue it falls into the same category as qualia. It's basically this: if there is no state change, the qualia did not exist.
Qualia is a bitch to reason about.
staticman2 · · focus · HN ↗
It's also a rhetorical move I've seen several times here...
shawnz · · focus · HN ↗
staticman2 · · focus · HN ↗
mitxela · · focus · HN ↗
staticman2 · · focus · HN ↗
joshheitzman · · focus · HN ↗
staticman2 · · focus · HN ↗
qlte · · focus · HN ↗
Not sure if it's a product of LessWrong or Slate Star Codex or something. I kinda suspect it might be LW, given how it superficially resembles an unanswerable philosophical paradox but in reality is about as challenging as a question posed in a 200 level philosophy course like introduction to ethics.
mitxela · · focus · HN ↗
Mumps · · focus · HN ↗
A LLM never has and, in their current architecture, never can/could experience suffering or real change of state.
The general and expected case for humans is that capacity. A human my indeed lose capacity, e.g. being braindead and in severe cases we do indeed say that they are not conscious or able to suffer (different argument: some would of course say that is suffering in and of itself)
shawnz · · focus · HN ↗
Sure, there are such cases. But in the general case, it seems to be that memory and ability to change specifically are not necessary and are not sufficient for consciousness, so we shouldn't judge machines on that basis