4 ms·

I think the ethical question is the only one that really requires even discussing consciousness. Unless there are externally observable things that can't or ar

I think the ethical question is the only one that really requires even discussing consciousness. Unless there are externally observable things that can't or are unlikely to be done without consciousness, which doesn't seem to be a solved question either.

onethought 4y ago
But even the ethical question is straight forward. LLM definitely don’t suffer, and we are happy “shutting off” a dog which both can suffer and has some greater level of consciousness. So, yes, it’s fine to shut off LLMs
- ben_w 4y ago
  Society may be happy doing that to a dog, I am not. Nor am I happy doing that to animals which are turned into dog meat. Contradictions abound with more than a superficial glance on many moral topics, in part due to our lack of any of omniscience, omnipotence, nor omnibenevolence.
  - onethought 4y ago
    But we aren’t talking about you. We are talking about us, society. And it’s unequivocal.
    - ben_w 4y ago
      Society is made up of individuals. 200 years ago, some societies were fine with slavery. Enough individuals rejected it and society changed. What you say only works insofar as "ethics" means only the rules of your society and not any person or group; this would also reject the "E" from PETA, the USA declaration of independence, and the Suffragettes.
      - onethought 4y ago
        Okay. So we kill and keep dolphins captive. We eat octopus. We run experiments on monkeys. This happens globally. For 1000s of years. There is no global or even local movement to stop treating conscious animals any better… which is exactly my point, AI in its current state is less than that. So until we as a society want to tackle consciousness animals I don’t think we will tackle consciousness in AI
karpierz 4y ago
I don't think ethics involves consciousness either; you can't inspect other people's consciousness, so how can you put ethical weight on it? You can assume that other people are conscious like you, and so you put ethical value on that. But then you're really putting ethical value on "being like me", irrespective of whether other people are or are not conscious.
- ben_w 4y ago
  > But then you're really putting ethical value on "being like me", irrespective of whether other people are or are not conscious. I can't find flaw with that, but I wish it were not so. I want it to be about consciousness being special rather than brain structure chauvinism.
wizofaus 4y ago
"Unless there are externally observable things that can't or are unlikely to be done without consciousness..." If it weren't, why would it have evolved in the first place? It seems me not unlikely that the only way we can accurately surmise what's going on inside the heads of other people (an obvious survival advantage) is to have that subjective experience of what's going on inside our own.

onethought 4y ago

But even the ethical question is straight forward. LLM definitely don’t suffer, and we are happy “shutting off” a dog which both can suffer and has some greater level of consciousness. So, yes, it’s fine to shut off LLMs

ben_w 4y ago
Society may be happy doing that to a dog, I am not. Nor am I happy doing that to animals which are turned into dog meat. Contradictions abound with more than a superficial glance on many moral topics, in part due to our lack of any of omniscience, omnipotence, nor omnibenevolence.
- onethought 4y ago
  But we aren’t talking about you. We are talking about us, society. And it’s unequivocal.
  - ben_w 4y ago
    Society is made up of individuals. 200 years ago, some societies were fine with slavery. Enough individuals rejected it and society changed. What you say only works insofar as "ethics" means only the rules of your society and not any person or group; this would also reject the "E" from PETA, the USA declaration of independence, and the Suffragettes.
    - onethought 4y ago
      Okay. So we kill and keep dolphins captive. We eat octopus. We run experiments on monkeys. This happens globally. For 1000s of years. There is no global or even local movement to stop treating conscious animals any better… which is exactly my point, AI in its current state is less than that. So until we as a society want to tackle consciousness animals I don’t think we will tackle consciousness in AI

karpierz 4y ago

I don't think ethics involves consciousness either; you can't inspect other people's consciousness, so how can you put ethical weight on it? You can assume that other people are conscious like you, and so you put ethical value on that. But then you're really putting ethical value on "being like me", irrespective of whether other people are or are not conscious.

ben_w 4y ago
> But then you're really putting ethical value on "being like me", irrespective of whether other people are or are not conscious. I can't find flaw with that, but I wish it were not so. I want it to be about consciousness being special rather than brain structure chauvinism.

wizofaus 4y ago

"Unless there are externally observable things that can't or are unlikely to be done without consciousness..." If it weren't, why would it have evolved in the first place? It seems me not unlikely that the only way we can accurately surmise what's going on inside the heads of other people (an obvious survival advantage) is to have that subjective experience of what's going on inside our own.