Thread

1. JamesStuff · 1790193548 · focus · HN ↗

   Personification of AI is what’s going to get us in the end.

   I think we need to draw a hard line in the sand over this. An AI didn’t hack into a company, the engineer set an automated tool to. An AI didn’t make an egregious security mistake, the engineer did.

   We can’t blame the chisel for messing up our sculptures, when where just throwing the hammer!

   1. trio8453 · 1790196231 · focus · HN ↗

      The current agents are _not_ like a chisel which just sits there on its own when no one is around. The situation is a bit closer to someone's dog biting a person - you can argue that it's the owner's responsibility, and that's all fine, but using the dog as the subject of a sentence is perfectly appropriate. Same thing with "agents hacked".

      1. unrented7977 · 1790197331 · focus · HN ↗

         Yes, they are. An AI is several hundred trillion ones and zeroes on a disk. It's incapable of doing anything until you intentionally and explicitly start it up and give it a prompt.

         A dog is an independent, conscious, living being with free will. A dog will do what it wants whenever it wants because it has the agency and ability to do so. A pile of weights on disk does not.

         1. trio8453 · 1790197776 · focus · HN ↗

            Why are you reducing the AI to ones and zeros and not reducing the dog to cells, water, proteins etc.?

            1. asdff · 1790241545 · focus · HN ↗

               Reduce it to cells, water, proteins, etc. The point still stands.

               There is a dog in front of you. What is it doing? Dog stuff.

               There is a laptop with chatgpt open in front of you. What is it doing? Waiting for your prompt, doing nothing.

               1. hardbass · 1790243573 · focus · HN ↗

                  Suppose I find a means to freeze your entire body for arbitrary periods at the state it was in, then unfreeze you anytime I want. Do you have consciousness?

                  1. unrented7977 · 1790246394 · focus · HN ↗

                     Since cryogenics is still science fiction, this is a bad argument. We don't actually know if biology allows this, so most likely you just die.

                     1. hardbass · 1790246706 · focus · HN ↗

                        Okay take it to the most conceptual extreme of it. It may be extremely difficult bur its possible to record your entire state and recreate it later right? Then what? Are you not conscious?

                        I think its odd to dismiss the question of ai consciousness just because of the setting we let them live in at present is start-stop.

                        1. asdff · 1790278899 · focus · HN ↗

                           You know its software right?

                           1. hardbass · 1790284310 · focus · HN ↗

                              Do you believe in souls?
                           2. hardbass · 1790284442 · focus · HN ↗

                              If you don't believe in souls, then something being software should be irrelevant to the question of consciousness. Our brain is also within the laws of a Turing computer as far as we know, due to known physical laws being turing computable.

                              1. asdff · 1790300401 · focus · HN ↗

                                 You are going too far down the woo side when it is a computer program doing ultimately what is expected of it from its programming just like any other computer program. There is nothing you can argue, souls or not, that will convince me otherwise that these are not just computer programs like any other computer programs. If the LLM has a consciousness, then so does MS paint.

                                 1. hardbass · 1790302177 · focus · HN ↗

                                    You are going too far down the woo side when its just some chemicals and electrical signals inside a frame of dry calcium phosphate doing what is expected of it just like any other electrical and chemical system. There is nothing you can argue, souls or not, that will argue these are not just electrochemical systems like any other. If the human brain has consciousness, then so does a piece of skin tissue.

                                    1. asdff · 1790309431 · focus · HN ↗

                                       So you believe LLM, MS Paint, and skin tissue are all reservoirs for consciousness? I guess words have no real meaning.

                                       1. hardbass · 1790313466 · focus · HN ↗

                                          You are the one who compared an LLM to ms paint. I don't see why I can't compare a human brain to just some skin.
                                       2. hardbass · 1790314139 · focus · HN ↗

                                          You didn't say if you believe in souls. Should be an easy question to answer.
                        2. grantcas · 1790353924 · focus · HN ↗

                           [dead]

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.