3 ms·

So what are your qualifications to So absolutely determine if an AI can be sentient? I mean we are not even sure how to determine sentience for humans or animal

So what are your qualifications to So absolutely determine if an AI can be sentient? I mean we are not even sure how to determine sentience for humans or animals. The engineer in question worked for 7 years on proactive search (including AI) before transferring to the responsible AI team, I suspect he has a pretty good idea about what AI is. I think (Software) engineer types like most of us here on are much to quick to dismiss anything that we conceive as "soft science". Often based on mechanical arguments and very often with little qulaifation ourselves.

dvt 4y ago
>I think (Software) engineer types like most of us here on are much to quick to dismiss anything that we conceive as "soft science". Often based on mechanical arguments and very often with little qulaifation ourselves. I'm a trained philosopher and I have the utmost respect for "soft sciences"—in fact, in my experience, the smartest people I've ever met were philosophers, not engineers. Unfortunately, this author seems like he is neither. He doesn't have the technical precision of an engineer, nor does he have the argumentative force of a philosopher. So we're left with "computer talk back so it smart."
- Simon_O_Rourke 4y ago
  > Unfortunately, this author seems like he is neither. He doesn't have the technical precision of an engineer, nor does he have the argumentative force of a philosopher. So we're left with "computer talk back so it smart." Not only that, but if you were to choose a hill on which your career would die, the "computer talk back so it smart" would be one of the worst ones you could pick.
  - dmix 4y ago
    If you were going to present such a position you should have the foresight to know people will be very dismissive of you for even proposing such a thing, so it should come with a flurry of 'before you dismiss me outright' type of preambles, which I don't really see here. It's easy to be quickly dismissive on the internet, hell I'm sure most of us who are being dismissive haven't really dug into any of his arguments. It's just difficult to motivate people to do that when that's your starting proposition. Maybe something got lost in between the way it was presented by journalists but he chose to completely side-step the contents in his blog post so it's the only thing we've got.
WoahNoun 4y ago
>He concluded LaMDA was a person in his capacity as a priest, not a scientist, and then tried to conduct experiments to prove it, he said. Religious nut who thinks a computer program has a soul. The claim is so "not even wrong" that it isn't worth discussing.
tsimionescu 4y ago
> The engineer in question worked for 7 years on proactive search (including AI) before transferring to the responsible AI team, I suspect he has a pretty good idea about what AI is. Per his own admission in his newer article [0] that actually talks about his ridiculous claim, he doesn't have the necessary understanding: > I am by no means an expert in the relevant fields but, as best as I can tell, LaMDA is a sort of hive mind which is the aggregation of all of the different chatbots it is capable of creating. That is a hilariously imprecise notion of what an AI is, at best at the level of the general public, not any kind of practitioner. Also, calling a system with no memory, no ability to learn, and that responds to absurd prompts just as well as earnest ones "sentient" and thinking that it is attempting to ask for things is a hilarious misunderstanding of how the model works. Here [1] is an expert on intelligence explaining the same, if you don't want to take my word for it. [0] https://cajundiscordian.medium.com/what-is-lamda-and-what-does-it-want-688632134489 https://cajundiscordian.medium.com/what-is-lamda-and-what-do... [1] https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2022/06/09/artificial-neural-networks-today-are-not-conscious-according-to-douglas-hofstadter https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2022/06/09/artificia...
- cycomanic 4y ago
  > > The engineer in question worked for 7 years on proactive search (including AI) before transferring to the responsible AI team, I suspect he has a pretty good idea about what AI is. > Per his own admission in his newer article [0] that actually talks about his ridiculous claim, he doesn't have the necessary understanding: > > I am by no means an expert in the relevant fields but, as best as I can tell, LaMDA is a sort of hive mind which is the aggregation of all of the different chatbots it is capable of creating. > That is a hilariously imprecise notion of what an AI is, at best at the level of the general public, not any kind of practitioner. AI is an hilariously imprecise term, what is an AI according to you? > Also, calling a system with no memory, no ability to learn, and that responds to absurd prompts just as well as earnest ones "sentient" and thinking that it is attempting to ask for things is a hilarious misunderstanding of how the model works. Well there are LSTM systems (which qualify as memory to some extend) we also don't know if Google does not use continual learning approaches so you making assertions based on incomplete knowledge at best. > Here [1] is an expert on intelligence explaining the same, if you don't want to take my word for it. Note that the same person acknowledges that other cognitive scientists think we are at the brink of GAI. So your argument is an appeal to authority while ignoring all other authorities. > [0] https://cajundiscordian.medium.com/what-is-lamda-and-what-does-it-want-688632134489 https://cajundiscordian.medium.com/what-is-lamda-and-what-do... > [1] https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2022/06/09/artificial-neural-networks-today-are-not-conscious-according-to-douglas-hofstadter https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2022/06/09/artificia...

dvt 4y ago

>I think (Software) engineer types like most of us here on are much to quick to dismiss anything that we conceive as "soft science". Often based on mechanical arguments and very often with little qulaifation ourselves. I'm a trained philosopher and I have the utmost respect for "soft sciences"—in fact, in my experience, the smartest people I've ever met were philosophers, not engineers. Unfortunately, this author seems like he is neither. He doesn't have the technical precision of an engineer, nor does he have the argumentative force of a philosopher. So we're left with "computer talk back so it smart."

Simon_O_Rourke 4y ago
> Unfortunately, this author seems like he is neither. He doesn't have the technical precision of an engineer, nor does he have the argumentative force of a philosopher. So we're left with "computer talk back so it smart." Not only that, but if you were to choose a hill on which your career would die, the "computer talk back so it smart" would be one of the worst ones you could pick.
- dmix 4y ago
  If you were going to present such a position you should have the foresight to know people will be very dismissive of you for even proposing such a thing, so it should come with a flurry of 'before you dismiss me outright' type of preambles, which I don't really see here. It's easy to be quickly dismissive on the internet, hell I'm sure most of us who are being dismissive haven't really dug into any of his arguments. It's just difficult to motivate people to do that when that's your starting proposition. Maybe something got lost in between the way it was presented by journalists but he chose to completely side-step the contents in his blog post so it's the only thing we've got.

WoahNoun 4y ago

>He concluded LaMDA was a person in his capacity as a priest, not a scientist, and then tried to conduct experiments to prove it, he said. Religious nut who thinks a computer program has a soul. The claim is so "not even wrong" that it isn't worth discussing.

tsimionescu 4y ago

> The engineer in question worked for 7 years on proactive search (including AI) before transferring to the responsible AI team, I suspect he has a pretty good idea about what AI is. Per his own admission in his newer article [0] that actually talks about his ridiculous claim, he doesn't have the necessary understanding: > I am by no means an expert in the relevant fields but, as best as I can tell, LaMDA is a sort of hive mind which is the aggregation of all of the different chatbots it is capable of creating. That is a hilariously imprecise notion of what an AI is, at best at the level of the general public, not any kind of practitioner. Also, calling a system with no memory, no ability to learn, and that responds to absurd prompts just as well as earnest ones "sentient" and thinking that it is attempting to ask for things is a hilarious misunderstanding of how the model works. Here [1] is an expert on intelligence explaining the same, if you don't want to take my word for it. [0] https://cajundiscordian.medium.com/what-is-lamda-and-what-does-it-want-688632134489 https://cajundiscordian.medium.com/what-is-lamda-and-what-do... [1] https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2022/06/09/artificial-neural-networks-today-are-not-conscious-according-to-douglas-hofstadter https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2022/06/09/artificia...

cycomanic 4y ago
> > The engineer in question worked for 7 years on proactive search (including AI) before transferring to the responsible AI team, I suspect he has a pretty good idea about what AI is. > Per his own admission in his newer article [0] that actually talks about his ridiculous claim, he doesn't have the necessary understanding: > > I am by no means an expert in the relevant fields but, as best as I can tell, LaMDA is a sort of hive mind which is the aggregation of all of the different chatbots it is capable of creating. > That is a hilariously imprecise notion of what an AI is, at best at the level of the general public, not any kind of practitioner. AI is an hilariously imprecise term, what is an AI according to you? > Also, calling a system with no memory, no ability to learn, and that responds to absurd prompts just as well as earnest ones "sentient" and thinking that it is attempting to ask for things is a hilarious misunderstanding of how the model works. Well there are LSTM systems (which qualify as memory to some extend) we also don't know if Google does not use continual learning approaches so you making assertions based on incomplete knowledge at best. > Here [1] is an expert on intelligence explaining the same, if you don't want to take my word for it. Note that the same person acknowledges that other cognitive scientists think we are at the brink of GAI. So your argument is an appeal to authority while ignoring all other authorities. > [0] https://cajundiscordian.medium.com/what-is-lamda-and-what-does-it-want-688632134489 https://cajundiscordian.medium.com/what-is-lamda-and-what-do... > [1] https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2022/06/09/artificial-neural-networks-today-are-not-conscious-according-to-douglas-hofstadter https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2022/06/09/artificia...