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A warning about 'model welfare'

242 points · 701 comments · andsoitis

  1. moomin · · focus · HN ↗
    Look, I do not have a scooby if current AI models are conscious and I strongly suspect it’s a meaningless question, but sooner or later we will need to address whether or not a certain thing is or isn’t a person, and we’d better not screw it up as badly as the Founding Fathers.
    1. snickerbockers · · focus · HN ↗
      Why don't we start with the animals then? It should be far easier to confer consciousness onto something which already meets the definition of "alive", has a divergent evolution path from ours, and displays many traits present in humanity such as emotion, a desire to continue its own life, and (to varying degrees) concepts of a social structure based around their immediate family members.

      Of course thats not actually tenable because virtually every society anywhere on earth is predicated upon treating animals as a commodity resource in ways that are horrific even compared to some of the worst things we've done to other humans in the past.

      My point here is that it is vain and narcissistic to let computer programs have rights above those of animals just because they can speak English and pretend to be your dream anime trad-waifu.

      Fix the fucking animal problem before you compare my relationship to inanimate objects unfavorably against the trans-atlantic slave trade of all fucking things.

      1. s08148692 · · focus · HN ↗
        2 reasons why we don't start with animals

        1. it's not consciousness we really value, it's intelligence 2. LLMs are not tasty

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