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Weeping whales: Stillborn humpback whale grieving documented

243 points · 192 comments · wglb

  1. georgemcbay · · focus · HN ↗
    Blows my mind that so many people just have this hardened internalized idea that we're somehow significantly different than any other animal.

    Sure, we've got them beat on language and planning, but we're currently in the process of being passed up on both those fronts by multi-dimensional arrays of floating point numbers sitting inside of sand. So, like, how special is that then, really?

    1. card_zero · · focus · HN ↗
      Do LLMs grieve?
      1. georgemcbay · · focus · HN ↗
        Nope.

        They can pretend to, of course, and use the language of grief, but if you can't feel the cold bottomless pit that has bored through your gut then you aren't really grieving.

        1. Ma8ee · · focus · HN ↗
          How do you know that they don’t? And conversely, how do you know any other human than yourself do?
          1. RealityVoid · · focus · HN ↗
            Do books grieve? I ascribe the same kind of interaction to llm's. They work on a different substrate than us and their perception of reality, if there is any, will be wholly different than our perception because of the constraints of the substrate itself.

            Not to mention the lack of continuity of existence kind of precludes any deeper and more meaningful interactions with the self.

            I am not saying that they are unable to feel, but at the current structure and ephemeral existance they are unable to do so, they lack the minimum prerequisites.

            1. pixl97 · · focus · HN ↗
              >Do books grieve?

              Is there any ordered state changes occurring in books?

              >they lack the minimum prerequisites.

              And these minimum prerequisites are? There are a number of scientists that would love your empirical evidence.

              >lack of continuity of existence

              Eh, the lengths of timelines that LLMs can execute for, and this is in singular execution and agentic evolution is ever increasing. There isn't any time based requirements either. For example I can give you all kinds of drugs that turn off and on your conscious awareness and this doesn't stop self interaction when you're awake.

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