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Thomas Jefferson, 1809, Virginia, USA: "Be assured that no person living wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a complete refutation of the doubts I have myse

Thomas Jefferson, 1809, Virginia, USA: "Be assured that no person living wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a complete refutation of the doubts I have myself entertained and expressed on the grade of understanding allotted to them by nature, and to find that in this respect they are on a par with ourselves. My doubts were the result of personal observation on the limited sphere of my own State, where the opportunities for the development of their genius were not favorable, and those of exercising it still less so. I expressed them therefore with great hesitation; but whatever be their degree of talent it is no measure of their rights. Because Sir Isaac Newton was superior to others in understanding, he was not therefore lord of the person or property of others. On this subject they are gaining daily in the opinions of nations, and hopeful advances are making towards their reestablishment on an equal footing with the other colors of the human family." Jeremy Bentham, 1780, United Kingdom: "It may one day come to be recognized that the number of legs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination of the os sacrum are reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the same fate. What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason, or perhaps the faculty of discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day or a week or even a month, old. But suppose they were otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not Can they reason?, nor Can they talk?, but Can they suffer?" The cultural distance between supposedly "objective" perceptions of what constitutes intelligent life has always been enormous, despite the same living evidence being provided to everyone.

ceejayoz 4y ago
Cool quote, but Jefferson died still a slaveowner. Pretending the sentience of black people and the sentience of ChatGPT are comparable is a non-starter.
- californiadreem 4y ago
  Thomas Jefferson and other slaveholders doubted that Africans lacked intelligence for similar reasons as the original poster--when presented with evidence of intelligence, they said they were simply mimics and nothing else (e.g. a slave mimed Euclid from his white neighbor). Jefferson wrote that letter in 1809. It took another 55 years in America for the supposedly "open" question of African intelligence to be forcefully advanced by the north. The south lived and worked side-by-side with breathing humans that differed only in skin color, and despite this daily contact, they firmly maintained they were inferior and without intelligent essence. What hope do animals or machines have in that world of presumptive doubt? What threshhold, what irrefutable proof would be accepted by these new doubting Thomases that a being is worthy of humane treatment? It might be prudent, given the trajectory enabled by Jefferson, his antecdents, and his ideological progeny's ignorance, to entertain the idea that despite all "rational" prejudice and bigotry, a being that even only mimics suffering should be afforded solace and sanctuary before society has evidence that it is a being inhered with "intelligent" life that responds to being wronged with revenge? If the model resembles humans in all else, it will resemble us in that. The hubris that says suffering only matters for "intelligent" "ensouled" beings is the same willful incredulity that brings cruelties like cat-burning into the world. They lacked reason, souls, and were only automata, after all: "It was a form of medieval French entertainment that, depending on the region, involved cats suspended over wood pyres, set in wicker cages, or strung from maypoles and then set alight. In some places, courimauds, or cat chasers, would drench a cat in flammable liquid, light it on fire, and then chase it through town."
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    Our horror over cat burning isn't really because of an evolving understanding of their sentience. We subject cows, pigs, sheep, etc. to the same horrors today; we even regularly inflict CTEs on human football players as part of our entertainment regimen. Again, pretending "ChatGPT isn't sentient" is on similarly shaky ground as "black people aren't sentient" is just goofy. It's correct to point out that it's going to, at some point, be difficult to determine if an AI is sentient or not. We are not at that point.
    - californiadreem 4y ago
      What is then the motivation for increased horror at animal cruelty? How is recreational zoosadism equivalent to harvesting animals for resources? How are voluntary and compensated incidental injuries equivalent to collective recreational zoosadism? And specifically, how is the claim that the human abilty to judge others' intelligence or ability to suffer is culturally determined and almost inevitably found to be wrong in favor of those arguing for more sensitivity "goofy"? Can you actually make that claim clear and distinct without waving it away as self-evident?
      - ceejayoz 4y ago
        > What is then the motivation for increased horror at animal cruelty? I'd imagine there are many, but one's probably the fact that we don't as regularly experience it as our ancestors did. We don't behead chickens for dinner, we don't fish the local streams to survive, we don't watch wolves kill baby lambs in our flock. Combine that with our capacity for empathy. Sentience isn't required; I feel bad when I throw away one of my houseplants. > Can you actually make that claim clear and distinct without waving it away as self-evident? I don't think anyone's got a perfect handle on what defines sentience. The debate will rage, and I've no doubt there'll be lots of cases in our future where the answer is "maybe?!" The edges of the problem will be hard to navigate. That doesn't mean we can't say "x almost certainly isn't sentient". We do it with rocks, and houseplants. I'm very comfortable doing it with ChatGPT.
        4y ago

ceejayoz 4y ago

Cool quote, but Jefferson died still a slaveowner. Pretending the sentience of black people and the sentience of ChatGPT are comparable is a non-starter.

californiadreem 4y ago
Thomas Jefferson and other slaveholders doubted that Africans lacked intelligence for similar reasons as the original poster--when presented with evidence of intelligence, they said they were simply mimics and nothing else (e.g. a slave mimed Euclid from his white neighbor). Jefferson wrote that letter in 1809. It took another 55 years in America for the supposedly "open" question of African intelligence to be forcefully advanced by the north. The south lived and worked side-by-side with breathing humans that differed only in skin color, and despite this daily contact, they firmly maintained they were inferior and without intelligent essence. What hope do animals or machines have in that world of presumptive doubt? What threshhold, what irrefutable proof would be accepted by these new doubting Thomases that a being is worthy of humane treatment? It might be prudent, given the trajectory enabled by Jefferson, his antecdents, and his ideological progeny's ignorance, to entertain the idea that despite all "rational" prejudice and bigotry, a being that even only mimics suffering should be afforded solace and sanctuary before society has evidence that it is a being inhered with "intelligent" life that responds to being wronged with revenge? If the model resembles humans in all else, it will resemble us in that. The hubris that says suffering only matters for "intelligent" "ensouled" beings is the same willful incredulity that brings cruelties like cat-burning into the world. They lacked reason, souls, and were only automata, after all: "It was a form of medieval French entertainment that, depending on the region, involved cats suspended over wood pyres, set in wicker cages, or strung from maypoles and then set alight. In some places, courimauds, or cat chasers, would drench a cat in flammable liquid, light it on fire, and then chase it through town."
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  Our horror over cat burning isn't really because of an evolving understanding of their sentience. We subject cows, pigs, sheep, etc. to the same horrors today; we even regularly inflict CTEs on human football players as part of our entertainment regimen. Again, pretending "ChatGPT isn't sentient" is on similarly shaky ground as "black people aren't sentient" is just goofy. It's correct to point out that it's going to, at some point, be difficult to determine if an AI is sentient or not. We are not at that point.
  - californiadreem 4y ago
    What is then the motivation for increased horror at animal cruelty? How is recreational zoosadism equivalent to harvesting animals for resources? How are voluntary and compensated incidental injuries equivalent to collective recreational zoosadism? And specifically, how is the claim that the human abilty to judge others' intelligence or ability to suffer is culturally determined and almost inevitably found to be wrong in favor of those arguing for more sensitivity "goofy"? Can you actually make that claim clear and distinct without waving it away as self-evident?
    - ceejayoz 4y ago
      > What is then the motivation for increased horror at animal cruelty? I'd imagine there are many, but one's probably the fact that we don't as regularly experience it as our ancestors did. We don't behead chickens for dinner, we don't fish the local streams to survive, we don't watch wolves kill baby lambs in our flock. Combine that with our capacity for empathy. Sentience isn't required; I feel bad when I throw away one of my houseplants. > Can you actually make that claim clear and distinct without waving it away as self-evident? I don't think anyone's got a perfect handle on what defines sentience. The debate will rage, and I've no doubt there'll be lots of cases in our future where the answer is "maybe?!" The edges of the problem will be hard to navigate. That doesn't mean we can't say "x almost certainly isn't sentient". We do it with rocks, and houseplants. I'm very comfortable doing it with ChatGPT.
      - 4y ago