When thinking about ‘AI’ I sometimes find it useful to replace the terms ‘model’ or ‘AI’ or whatever with a description of what we’re really talking about here: a whole bunch of floating point numbers.
> In a series of private meetings, the company consulted religious scholars to help instill morality into its FLOATING POINT NUMBERS — and make the case that their numbers could be conscious.
I recommend keeping a few NaNs in-hand if you’re worried. Spread a couple of around if your numbers start to stir and you’ll be right as rain.
> It appeared to Rabbi Navon that Mr. Olah and his team believed that FLOATING POINT NUMBERS had what philosophers call “moral status” on par with a person — that it was a being with similar inherent rights to dignity or respect.
They’re cleverly designed and work well for their purpose, but can assure you they have neither dignity nor moral status.
> If the FLOATING POINT NUMBERS themselves could be made to choose goodness, Mr. Olah reasoned, the world would be more safe.
I get it. I’ve spent years trying to get my floating point numbers to choose goodness - I wish them luck.
that’s like the whole philosophical discussion. where on the line is this llm; closer to a rock or a human? a plant is closer. and a fly, a lizard. we still treat so many things terribly.
It does seem exceptionally silly that a collection of floating point numbers has immediately outranked animals and other living beings. That’s why i like the parent comment. They’re numbers!
edit: maybe easier to say collections of atoms though are not to be treated equally. That’s reasonable isn’t it?
It is a philosophical discussion. It has also been debated by great minds and the consensus right now is that we do not know (and there is a possibility that it is unknowable) when something is conscious.
Any determination is fundamentally flawed if it is derived from assuming that we know the absolute truth or falseness of the proposition that an algorithm can think.
It doesn't matter what you believe or feel or think, there is no consensus. If you are prepared to accept the belief that an individual can unilaterally decide the person-ness of something, then be prepared to accept when some individual decides to act on the principle that you don't have it.
> If you are prepared to accept the belief that an individual can unilaterally decide the person-ness of something, then be prepared to accept when some individual decides to act on the principle that you don't have it.
No, I will not be prepared to accept that, and neither will I accept that. This sounds like a threat, and a really funny one at that. You must accept that my floating numbers might be persons, otherwise... somebody will say that you're not! And then something bad might happen, who's to say.......
In the civilized world we all agree on the personhood of humans. If I say that your chatbot isn't a person, I am not uprooting the entire social understanding of personhood - I am not saying that suddenly you might not be a person, or that guy might not be a person. I'm saying that I refuse to consider a chatbot a person.
It's as if I were to come up to you with a brick in my hand, saying that this brick is a person. If you were to say "no", I would reply "well, if this brick isn't a person, your chatbot isn't a person either!"
How did you make such a big leap from consciousness to personhood anyway? They are two quite different things. Consciousness is a question of science, personhood is a question of culture. Pigs might be conscious and we treat them in a disgusting way, but even if we achieved a worldwide vegan utopia, wouldn't we still treat them differently from humans?
I hate to use Claudish here, but "postnatal" and "dead" are quite load-bearing here :) Clinically dead? Coma? Born human baby, but with anencephaly - expected lifespan is days, and there's literally no brain - but, well, are they a person? Ask 1000 people - and I'm betting we'll get a nice bimodal distribution.
I take your point that a human walking around a city will - out of that 1000 responses - hopefully get 990+ of "yes, a person" - but that will start to degrade quickly once you hit boundaries.
And the less said about dehumanizaion - untermensh and that entire line of thinking - the better.
>In the civilized world we all agree on the personhood of humans.
You seem to have put a second tautology in to your tautology.
All right thinking people think rhat the things that qualify qualify.
If they didn't they wouldn't qualify, or be right thinking. But that's ok because we know the things that don't qualify don't qualify if we didn't know that we wouldn't be right thinking.
>How did you make such a big leap from consciousness to personhood anyway?
Once you start unilaterally making decisions about the unproven, you can decide all of the unprovables. History shows that personhood rolls into the firing range fairly quickly when people start doing that.
I'm more than comfortable saying you can't do that before someone openly declares that they are doing it.
I'm sorry but I don't understand your first part. Give it to me in plain English, doc.
>Once you start unilaterally making decisions about the unproven, you can decide all of the unprovables.
You mean that if I say your dumbass chatbot isn't conscious, it's like a slippery slope and next thing you know you're not a person anymore, and you're in a concentration camp? Really, man?
thadt · · focus · HN ↗
> In a series of private meetings, the company consulted religious scholars to help instill morality into its FLOATING POINT NUMBERS — and make the case that their numbers could be conscious.
I recommend keeping a few NaNs in-hand if you’re worried. Spread a couple of around if your numbers start to stir and you’ll be right as rain.
> It appeared to Rabbi Navon that Mr. Olah and his team believed that FLOATING POINT NUMBERS had what philosophers call “moral status” on par with a person — that it was a being with similar inherent rights to dignity or respect.
They’re cleverly designed and work well for their purpose, but can assure you they have neither dignity nor moral status.
> If the FLOATING POINT NUMBERS themselves could be made to choose goodness, Mr. Olah reasoned, the world would be more safe.
I get it. I’ve spent years trying to get my floating point numbers to choose goodness - I wish them luck.
Lerc · · focus · HN ↗
apsurd · · focus · HN ↗
It does seem exceptionally silly that a collection of floating point numbers has immediately outranked animals and other living beings. That’s why i like the parent comment. They’re numbers!
edit: maybe easier to say collections of atoms though are not to be treated equally. That’s reasonable isn’t it?
Lerc · · focus · HN ↗
Any determination is fundamentally flawed if it is derived from assuming that we know the absolute truth or falseness of the proposition that an algorithm can think.
It doesn't matter what you believe or feel or think, there is no consensus. If you are prepared to accept the belief that an individual can unilaterally decide the person-ness of something, then be prepared to accept when some individual decides to act on the principle that you don't have it.
novideonoradio · · focus · HN ↗
No, I will not be prepared to accept that, and neither will I accept that. This sounds like a threat, and a really funny one at that. You must accept that my floating numbers might be persons, otherwise... somebody will say that you're not! And then something bad might happen, who's to say.......
In the civilized world we all agree on the personhood of humans. If I say that your chatbot isn't a person, I am not uprooting the entire social understanding of personhood - I am not saying that suddenly you might not be a person, or that guy might not be a person. I'm saying that I refuse to consider a chatbot a person.
It's as if I were to come up to you with a brick in my hand, saying that this brick is a person. If you were to say "no", I would reply "well, if this brick isn't a person, your chatbot isn't a person either!"
How did you make such a big leap from consciousness to personhood anyway? They are two quite different things. Consciousness is a question of science, personhood is a question of culture. Pigs might be conscious and we treat them in a disgusting way, but even if we achieved a worldwide vegan utopia, wouldn't we still treat them differently from humans?
lazyasciiart · · focus · HN ↗
novideonoradio · · focus · HN ↗
My point is, if you go outside and look at a living human, you will go "yeah, that's a person", and so will any normal human.
foobar10000 · · focus · HN ↗
I take your point that a human walking around a city will - out of that 1000 responses - hopefully get 990+ of "yes, a person" - but that will start to degrade quickly once you hit boundaries.
And the less said about dehumanizaion - untermensh and that entire line of thinking - the better.
novideonoradio · · focus · HN ↗
[dead]
Lerc · · focus · HN ↗
You seem to have put a second tautology in to your tautology.
All right thinking people think rhat the things that qualify qualify.
If they didn't they wouldn't qualify, or be right thinking. But that's ok because we know the things that don't qualify don't qualify if we didn't know that we wouldn't be right thinking.
>How did you make such a big leap from consciousness to personhood anyway?
Once you start unilaterally making decisions about the unproven, you can decide all of the unprovables. History shows that personhood rolls into the firing range fairly quickly when people start doing that.
I'm more than comfortable saying you can't do that before someone openly declares that they are doing it.
novideonoradio · · focus · HN ↗
>Once you start unilaterally making decisions about the unproven, you can decide all of the unprovables.
You mean that if I say your dumbass chatbot isn't conscious, it's like a slippery slope and next thing you know you're not a person anymore, and you're in a concentration camp? Really, man?
hardbass · · focus · HN ↗