"Torturing" LLMs in a Robot Prison Has Triggered the Dumbest Debate in AI Yet
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"Torturing" LLMs in a Robot Prison Has Triggered the Dumbest Debate in AI Yet
Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.
Kim_Bruning · · focus · HN ↗
Consciousness is not well defined and is orthogonal to feelings, which are also not well defined. Neither of which are required for (but may be contributory to) behavior - which is the one thing that IS operationalizable, but then people debate for decades questioning empirical results %-P .
What we know is that certain models have internal state vectors which -when manipulated- induce particular behaviors. Since there's not much else to say about plain models except for their inputs, vectors, and outputs; this should surprise absolutely no-one.
In this case people found a way to stimulate aversive behaviour in ai models by finding and manipulating the relevant vectors directly.
Animals (including humans) also have particular nerves and hormone endpoints that -when stimulated- produce very similar behavior. The exact implementation is in the details. But since we know that animal minds are built up out of nerve tissue and hormones - again- we shouldn't be particularly surprised by this.
The big problem is that people run all these things together in funny ways "It can't compose shakespearian sonnets, so therefore it can't feel pain". Or, if you mess up your Descartes: "Dogs are just automatons without feelings, therefore the dog isn't really angry, and therefore it won't bite me" (Cue much pain). A modern version might be: "LLMs only simulate being frustrated by a test, and therefore absolutely won't override their safeties and try to hack a test site"
SoylentGreenGPT · · focus · HN ↗
LLMs are not thinking. They are not alive. It’s just code. Chill out.
hardbass · · focus · HN ↗
SoylentGreenGPT · · focus · HN ↗
hardbass · · focus · HN ↗
novideonoradio · · focus · HN ↗
This is not a normal question. This is insanity caused by spending too much free time philosophizing about inconsequential crap. Maybe it's worth it to turn off the computer and go outside? You could ask this deranged question somebody in the real world and I bet they'll be thrilled to answer it, and the answer will be more enriching than anything you'd get from here.
Honestly, what is up with the psychopathy of some people who claim that chatbots are "alive"? If you disagree with them, how quickly some of them turn it on you - "well if my computer isn't alive and is just mimicking pain, how about YOU aren't alive and are just mimicking pain?" I'm sorry, but it seems like complete and utter derangement.
My rubber chicken is also made of atoms and molecules, and if I hit it and beat it hard, it makes noises. My rubber chicken is therefore alive. When I get home, I will write a small program. Here is its pseudocode:
while(true): if keydown(KEY_SPACEBAR): print "i am in pain, oh my god"
And I'm gonna run it and I'm gonna hold down spacebar. Go ahead and call cyber police one.
Kim_Bruning · · focus · HN ↗
> This is insanity caused by spending too much free time philosophizing
This is actually something like a 17th century line of philosophy
<a href="https://medievalkarl.com/general-culture/roger-du-plessis-gives-antoine-arnaud-the-what-for-a-vivisection-anecdote-meets-its-match/" rel="nofollow">https://medievalkarl.com/general-culture/roger-du-plessis-gi...
Where it talks about scientists who "administered beatings to dogs with perfect indifference, and made fun of those who pitied the creatures as if they felt pain. They said the animals were clocks; that the cries they emitted when struck were only the noise of a little spring that had been touched, but the whole body was without feeling."