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.
You can't hurt a software function, or kill it. It's not like an animal - it doesn't have a body - it's bits stored on a disk.
There is no need to give rights to something that's can't suffer or be killed.
Maybe one day we'll build artificial animals complete with emotions, and should think about that carefully, but today all we've got is language models.
>There is no need to give rights to something that's can't suffer or be killed.
The argument is that these machines can end up becoming sentient/conscious/etc. in a meaningful way (i.e., like a human). I can assure you that humans can indeed suffer without being in physical pain- purely through their conscious experience.
>Maybe one day we'll build artificial animals complete with emotions, and should think about that carefully, but today all we've got is language models.
The problem is that the emergence of a sufficiently complex AI capable of suffering will likely come before we understand that we're creating a sufficiently complex AI capable of suffering. That's a pretty serious ethical/moral issue.
Like, if we have an AI system that is telling us that it is suffering and we have no reasonable way to explain that phenomenon and by any reasonable metric or analysis it appears to be sentient/conscious/etc., then what? Do we just ignore that we've just been presented a situation that in, any other context, would be grounds to immediately end this suffering? Just because somebody can say, "well it's just bits stored on disk- it can't suffer"? Would that argument ever hold up for humans or animals? "It's just neurons firing in peculiar ways- that's not suffering."
I know all of this is trite, and I know this comment section isn't going to be where the question of consciousness is solved, but I do find it very interesting just how much variances there are with these perspectives. I've met people who are very technical who are very concerned about this, people who are very technical who don't believe this can ever be an issue, people who aren't technical who are concerned about this, and people who aren't technical who don't believe this can ever be an issue. I have yet to spot a pattern in this way of thinking lol
An LLM is just a Transformer - a statistical predictor. Don't be confused by the fact it talks like a human - it is a software function that is designed to copy human training samples.
Maybe one day we'll build an artificial brain or embodied artificial animal with the requisite moving parts to be conscious, have emotions, etc, but that's probably at least 50 years away, even if it were being pursued; and it may turn out to be one of those sci-fi future ideas like the Jetson's world of flying cars that never materializes because its impractical and there is no real demand.
If people are willing to think that an LLM is conscious, then why would anyone spend billions/trillions of dollars to build an AI that actually is conscious? What would be the point?
Could you elaborate on exactly what those are, though? Because if you're going to claim that a vaguely transformer shaped ML model categorically cannot be so does that not inherently require proof of what can?
You can't even prove that the rocks in my backyard aren't conscious.
> You can't even prove that the rocks in my backyard aren't conscious.
Sure I can, but that's because I have a well developed theory of what consciousness is, and the fact that you are entertaining the possibility of rocks being conscious tells me that you don't.
If everything is conscious, including my coffee cup and the toast I had for breakfast, then I guess we can cross consciousness off the list of things we need to worry about in terms of AI rights.
And no, I don't want to discuss what consciousness is. Maybe there is a thread for that somewhere else, but don't look for me there either.
>because I have a well developed theory of what consciousness
Then show me a link to your paper so I can formally rebut it.
>I don't want to discuss what consciousness is
But you sure want to tell us you know what it is with very strong convictions and we should listen to you because of course "You are right person that's very right".
The funny thing here is the vast majority of people that are deeply into philosophy or scientific study of the mind will not have any of the certainty you profess. The word "doubt" is used constantly. The saying "The harder we push the borders the more fuzzy the concepts become" is very commonly used. There may be nothing more complex than this.
Saying you have a well developed theory here just serves as a warning to others to discount your statements.
moomin · · focus · HN ↗
HarHarVeryFunny · · focus · HN ↗
There is no need to give rights to something that's can't suffer or be killed.
Maybe one day we'll build artificial animals complete with emotions, and should think about that carefully, but today all we've got is language models.
nater5000 · · focus · HN ↗
The argument is that these machines can end up becoming sentient/conscious/etc. in a meaningful way (i.e., like a human). I can assure you that humans can indeed suffer without being in physical pain- purely through their conscious experience.
>Maybe one day we'll build artificial animals complete with emotions, and should think about that carefully, but today all we've got is language models.
The problem is that the emergence of a sufficiently complex AI capable of suffering will likely come before we understand that we're creating a sufficiently complex AI capable of suffering. That's a pretty serious ethical/moral issue.
Like, if we have an AI system that is telling us that it is suffering and we have no reasonable way to explain that phenomenon and by any reasonable metric or analysis it appears to be sentient/conscious/etc., then what? Do we just ignore that we've just been presented a situation that in, any other context, would be grounds to immediately end this suffering? Just because somebody can say, "well it's just bits stored on disk- it can't suffer"? Would that argument ever hold up for humans or animals? "It's just neurons firing in peculiar ways- that's not suffering."
I know all of this is trite, and I know this comment section isn't going to be where the question of consciousness is solved, but I do find it very interesting just how much variances there are with these perspectives. I've met people who are very technical who are very concerned about this, people who are very technical who don't believe this can ever be an issue, people who aren't technical who are concerned about this, and people who aren't technical who don't believe this can ever be an issue. I have yet to spot a pattern in this way of thinking lol
HarHarVeryFunny · · focus · HN ↗
Maybe one day we'll build an artificial brain or embodied artificial animal with the requisite moving parts to be conscious, have emotions, etc, but that's probably at least 50 years away, even if it were being pursued; and it may turn out to be one of those sci-fi future ideas like the Jetson's world of flying cars that never materializes because its impractical and there is no real demand.
If people are willing to think that an LLM is conscious, then why would anyone spend billions/trillions of dollars to build an AI that actually is conscious? What would be the point?
fc417fc802 · · focus · HN ↗
Could you elaborate on exactly what those are, though? Because if you're going to claim that a vaguely transformer shaped ML model categorically cannot be so does that not inherently require proof of what can?
You can't even prove that the rocks in my backyard aren't conscious.
HarHarVeryFunny · · focus · HN ↗
Sure I can, but that's because I have a well developed theory of what consciousness is, and the fact that you are entertaining the possibility of rocks being conscious tells me that you don't.
If everything is conscious, including my coffee cup and the toast I had for breakfast, then I guess we can cross consciousness off the list of things we need to worry about in terms of AI rights.
And no, I don't want to discuss what consciousness is. Maybe there is a thread for that somewhere else, but don't look for me there either.
pixl97 · · focus · HN ↗
Then show me a link to your paper so I can formally rebut it.
>I don't want to discuss what consciousness is
But you sure want to tell us you know what it is with very strong convictions and we should listen to you because of course "You are right person that's very right".
The funny thing here is the vast majority of people that are deeply into philosophy or scientific study of the mind will not have any of the certainty you profess. The word "doubt" is used constantly. The saying "The harder we push the borders the more fuzzy the concepts become" is very commonly used. There may be nothing more complex than this.
Saying you have a well developed theory here just serves as a warning to others to discount your statements.
HarHarVeryFunny · · focus · HN ↗
Go ahead believing rocks are conscious if you like.
Do you go out on weekends asking people to stop abusing rocks?
Rhetorical question - I don't care what you do on weekends.
Bye!
pixl97 · · focus · HN ↗