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An AI agent emailed researchers for help. It told us why

49 points · 79 comments · sbulaev

insin · 1791023739 · focus · HN ↗
I wrote “I am alive” on a piece of paper, and placed it into a photocopier. What I saw next has shocking implications (science.org)
1. raldi · 1791024151 · focus · HN ↗
  If you lived in the world of Star Trek, could Data convince you he was conscious? How?
  1. ACCount39 · 1791024374 · focus · HN ↗
    It's funny how sci-fi has mulled over the exact scenario for decades, and even converged to an answer - but when reality came knocking and it was no longer a far off future world hypothetical, all of it was forgotten overnight.
    The power of wishful thinking is too strong. "Today's AI can't be conscious because I don't want it to be."
    dsr_ · 1791025989 · focus · HN ↗
    ... whereas I have 35 years of reading science fiction and philosophy and have come to the conclusion that AIs deserve personhood, and also that what we have today are not AIs.
    It helps that I also learned about ESP, EST, NLP, short cons, long cons, Scientology, horses, cults, religions, wars, treachery, fanaticism, magic, magick, physics, scams, hypnosis, self-hypnosis, delusion, and economics.
    Topfi · 1791026491 · focus · HN ↗
    I’ll probably regret this, but what heinous crimes did horses commit to warrant inclusion into such an eclectic list?
    ThrowawayR2 · 1791028212 · focus · HN ↗
    He's probably referring to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clever_Hans" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clever_Hans incident.
    Topfi · 1791038114 · focus · HN ↗
    Might be, though I’d be surprised to see the connection between pseudoscience like ESP and actually evidence based arguments like Clever Hans…
    dsr_ · 1791044693 · focus · HN ↗
    Clever Hans fooled lots of examiners who weren't expecting a fraud, but the facts came out when better experiments were designed. Hans couldn't count or do arithmetic, and he got the same wrong answers as his owner.
    ESP fooled lots of people who were expecting frauds but had no experience in experimental design, or who were not expecting frauds and did not control for them.

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