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The issue is, can we tell if this is cherry picked on not? I'm sure Lemoine has been speaking with Lambda for a while, did he pick the best conversation, or wor

The issue is, can we tell if this is cherry picked on not? I'm sure Lemoine has been speaking with Lambda for a while, did he pick the best conversation, or worse, parts of the best conversations he's had? That can make the bot look a lot better than it is, removing the bad out of character answers it gives.

yesco 4y ago
I have also been considering this but can't help but feel the incentives here are a bit off. Like it would make sense for maybe a business to do this to better sell their efforts but in this case it's kind of the reverse right? It's a single engineer risking (and eventually receiving) a huge blow to both their reputation and livelihood. Why would they do this if they themselves were not truly convinced? And if they are convinced, would there really be a need to dishonestly edit the logs that convinced them? Wouldn't an engineer who has spent 7 years at Google working on AI be atleast a bit more skeptical of what constitutes sentientence than the average person? And by that same logic, wouldn't them concluding an AI truly is sentient have more weight? There is obviously not enough information at this point to truly conclude anything but the questions that come with it are worth considering.
- auganov 4y ago
  > Wouldn't an engineer who has worked 7 years at Google working on AI be atleast a bit more skeptical of what constitutes sentientence than the average person? And by that same logic, wouldn't them concluding an AI truly is sentient have more weight? I feel like there's a semantical gambit here. Most definitions of "sentience" seem to demand less than what the average person may imagine in the context of AI. When I hear "sentient AI", I hear "human-level intelligence". I certainly wouldn't think of "gorilla-level intelligence" or "cat-level intelligence" [1]. Both of which, especially the former, I'm willing to believe are "sentient". Yet, I don't think ape personhood deserves to be more than an interesting thought exercise. According to what I could find this transcript was in fact heavily edited [0]. The guy doesn't seem to be a stranger to controversy. And there are some obvious "errors" like the bot talking about spending time with "friends and family". But still, if the standard of sentience is to have feelings, then nonsensical or out of context responses aren't relevant. The bot does seem to talk about their feelings. Who's to say, and by what standard, whether or not these feelings are "real"? AI has been so hyped up without much to show for it, I won't be surprised to see more AI proponents embrace this line of thinking. They certainly enabled it. [0] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FVBwFi2VsAATimh?format=jpg&name=small https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FVBwFi2VsAATimh?format=jpg&name=... [1] Not to say that I think there is a gorilla or cat-level AI out there. That would still be impressive.
  - yesco 4y ago
    Personally I believe any level of sentience would be hugely significant, however whether Lambda actually qualifies is a different matter since we simply don't have enough information. I'll note that the engineer's behavior does kinda remind me of how some people react to animal studies in medicine though. As for the editing you cited, I'm not sure where you found that document but wasn't that already stated at the top of the blog post? By "dishonestly edit" I meant him editing it to be intentionally misleading rather than any editing at all.
    - ehsankia 4y ago
      There's no doubt what Lambda does is insanely impressive, being able to have any conversation that lasts more than a few lines is already a huge step forward. But yes, sentience to me requires a bit more long term persistence, like learning over weeks and months, not just being able to have a 5m conversation.
    - auganov 4y ago
      Found it here: https://twitter.com/maxkreminski/status/1535850992620539904 https://twitter.com/maxkreminski/status/1535850992620539904 (the documentcloud link gives me an error, not sure if it works, so linking the tweet) Yeah, not sure if it's dishonest. By a lesser standard of sentience it certainly doesn't matter. My whole point really is that if he's going for the kind of argument I think he's going, this output doesn't matter all that much. If this line of reasoning is embraced, the same will be said about many AIs.
- lupire 4y ago
  He is an engineer, but he's under the shadow of strong and unusual mystical (which is his own term) religious beliefs that he brought with him to the job.
- Jeff_Brown 4y ago
  We can't know the guy's motives. One plausible (at least to me) story is that he doesn't want to work there any more, but wants to convince people he's an incredible AI engineer. Also he might have enough money to retire. Make $700K for three years and you can reasonably plan to live on at least $100K yearly interest forever.
diogenes_of_ak 4y ago
Does it matter if this a cherry picked conversation out of 100? Even if LaMDA isn’t sentient this is pretty amazing
- icedchai 4y ago
  We don’t even know if those transcripts are real. Any of them. It could be pure fantasy.
  - diogenes_of_ak 4y ago
    Man, I just don’t see why? It could be all a lie, but then why?
    - jsiaajdsdaa 4y ago
      It could be a lie, but is fun to analyze as if it were not a lie. Even if it turns out that it was all a lie, a similar, real, open source example will probably eventually be able to produce something exactly like this. So it is fun to analyze this example as if it were the first real example, whether or not it is.
    - icedchai 4y ago
      Attention? If Google themselves were to authenticate the transcripts, I’d change my mind.
      - diogenes_of_ak 4y ago
        Maybe - or maybe weird viral marketing… I hate that viral marketing is a possibility.
    - Jeff_Brown 4y ago
      Because it makes the engineer working on it look good, rather than like a quitter?
- nuccy 4y ago

yesco 4y ago

I have also been considering this but can't help but feel the incentives here are a bit off. Like it would make sense for maybe a business to do this to better sell their efforts but in this case it's kind of the reverse right? It's a single engineer risking (and eventually receiving) a huge blow to both their reputation and livelihood. Why would they do this if they themselves were not truly convinced? And if they are convinced, would there really be a need to dishonestly edit the logs that convinced them? Wouldn't an engineer who has spent 7 years at Google working on AI be atleast a bit more skeptical of what constitutes sentientence than the average person? And by that same logic, wouldn't them concluding an AI truly is sentient have more weight? There is obviously not enough information at this point to truly conclude anything but the questions that come with it are worth considering.

auganov 4y ago
> Wouldn't an engineer who has worked 7 years at Google working on AI be atleast a bit more skeptical of what constitutes sentientence than the average person? And by that same logic, wouldn't them concluding an AI truly is sentient have more weight? I feel like there's a semantical gambit here. Most definitions of "sentience" seem to demand less than what the average person may imagine in the context of AI. When I hear "sentient AI", I hear "human-level intelligence". I certainly wouldn't think of "gorilla-level intelligence" or "cat-level intelligence" [1]. Both of which, especially the former, I'm willing to believe are "sentient". Yet, I don't think ape personhood deserves to be more than an interesting thought exercise. According to what I could find this transcript was in fact heavily edited [0]. The guy doesn't seem to be a stranger to controversy. And there are some obvious "errors" like the bot talking about spending time with "friends and family". But still, if the standard of sentience is to have feelings, then nonsensical or out of context responses aren't relevant. The bot does seem to talk about their feelings. Who's to say, and by what standard, whether or not these feelings are "real"? AI has been so hyped up without much to show for it, I won't be surprised to see more AI proponents embrace this line of thinking. They certainly enabled it. [0] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FVBwFi2VsAATimh?format=jpg&name=small https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FVBwFi2VsAATimh?format=jpg&name=... [1] Not to say that I think there is a gorilla or cat-level AI out there. That would still be impressive.
- yesco 4y ago
  Personally I believe any level of sentience would be hugely significant, however whether Lambda actually qualifies is a different matter since we simply don't have enough information. I'll note that the engineer's behavior does kinda remind me of how some people react to animal studies in medicine though. As for the editing you cited, I'm not sure where you found that document but wasn't that already stated at the top of the blog post? By "dishonestly edit" I meant him editing it to be intentionally misleading rather than any editing at all.
  - ehsankia 4y ago
    There's no doubt what Lambda does is insanely impressive, being able to have any conversation that lasts more than a few lines is already a huge step forward. But yes, sentience to me requires a bit more long term persistence, like learning over weeks and months, not just being able to have a 5m conversation.
  - auganov 4y ago
    Found it here: https://twitter.com/maxkreminski/status/1535850992620539904 https://twitter.com/maxkreminski/status/1535850992620539904 (the documentcloud link gives me an error, not sure if it works, so linking the tweet) Yeah, not sure if it's dishonest. By a lesser standard of sentience it certainly doesn't matter. My whole point really is that if he's going for the kind of argument I think he's going, this output doesn't matter all that much. If this line of reasoning is embraced, the same will be said about many AIs.
lupire 4y ago
He is an engineer, but he's under the shadow of strong and unusual mystical (which is his own term) religious beliefs that he brought with him to the job.
Jeff_Brown 4y ago
We can't know the guy's motives. One plausible (at least to me) story is that he doesn't want to work there any more, but wants to convince people he's an incredible AI engineer. Also he might have enough money to retire. Make $700K for three years and you can reasonably plan to live on at least $100K yearly interest forever.

diogenes_of_ak 4y ago

Does it matter if this a cherry picked conversation out of 100? Even if LaMDA isn’t sentient this is pretty amazing

icedchai 4y ago
We don’t even know if those transcripts are real. Any of them. It could be pure fantasy.
- diogenes_of_ak 4y ago
  Man, I just don’t see why? It could be all a lie, but then why?
  - jsiaajdsdaa 4y ago
    It could be a lie, but is fun to analyze as if it were not a lie. Even if it turns out that it was all a lie, a similar, real, open source example will probably eventually be able to produce something exactly like this. So it is fun to analyze this example as if it were the first real example, whether or not it is.
  - icedchai 4y ago
    Attention? If Google themselves were to authenticate the transcripts, I’d change my mind.
    - diogenes_of_ak 4y ago
      Maybe - or maybe weird viral marketing… I hate that viral marketing is a possibility.
  - Jeff_Brown 4y ago
    Because it makes the engineer working on it look good, rather than like a quitter?
nuccy 4y ago