5 ms·

>People who even consider this need to get some reading done on philosophy. Are you perhaps trying to pass off your opinions and beliefs as 'philosophy and soc

by fooker 4y ago

>People who even consider this need to get some reading done on philosophy. Are you perhaps trying to pass off your opinions and beliefs as 'philosophy and social sciences'? People who dismiss this out of hand have a bit more reading to do. Philosophers have been divided for millennia about the definition of sentience and consciousness. Questions like 'Is an earthworm conscious?', 'Can the earth be sentient?' have wildly differing credible answers. There is absolutely no 'settled' debate here. For most definitions of sentience, a tech demo that defeats that definition is on the horizon.

paxys 4y ago
> For most definitions of sentience, a tech demo that defeats that definition is on the horizon. Should have stopped at the line before. You are wayyy overestimating the current state of AI research. This part is simply not happening.
- fooker 4y ago
  Okay, how about 'definition of sentience which does not rule out more than 0.01% of humans over 4 years age'?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
stuartd 4y ago
> For most definitions of sentience, a tech demo that defeats that definition is on the horizon. I’ll take that bet (given a valid definition of ‘horizon’ in this context)
- fooker 4y ago
  The issue here is -- if you make the definition of sentience too strong, there would be a good percentage of humans who can not pass that test!
  - brador 4y ago
    And everytime the bots pass a test we just move the goal posts. Remember the Turing test we once thought was enough?
    - paulryanrogers 4y ago
      Was the Turing test ever considered the be-all-end-all for evaluating AI? Or rather a kind of rough first draft?
      - brador 4y ago
        Turing test was considered a starting point, but after removing it as the benchmark we’ve replaced it with nothing.
        hnfong 4y ago
        "I know it when I see it" - used to define porn, and now, sentience.
    - bloppe 4y ago
      Turing test is about intelligence not sentience
aaomidi 4y ago
It’s what bothers me too. People pass off their opinion as if it’s settled fact. My stance is it’s way too complicated to say if an LLM can be sentient, but it’s _possible_.
- jamiek88 4y ago
  Why do you think it’s possible?
  - scarmig 4y ago
    Sentience is very mysterious, and no one has a great theory of when or how it arises. It seems to be related to the complicated nervous system humans have. If an LLM can reproduce the external reactions that a human has to a wide variety of stimuli, it's certainly possible that it's sentient.
  - aaomidi 4y ago
    Lack of evidence that it’s not possible. Until that’s proven, then yeah there is a possibility. Especially because no one can define sentience.
andrewflnr 4y ago
I, for one, am much more prepared to believe an earthworm is conscious than a chatbot is, purely on grounds that the earthworm has actual experiences over time, and a chatbot can only generously be said to have such, and only scoped within a certain chat session (which would mean ChatGPT has already lived and died billions of times, have fun with that).
- buffington 4y ago
  > a chatbot can only generously be said to have such, and only scoped within a certain chat session So far. I'd be shocked if, within the next few years or less, we didn't have ChatGPT-like tools that train themselves on the entire scope of every conversation they have. Once that happens, is your argument still valid?
  - andrewflnr 4y ago
    Not this exact argument, no. At best it would need adjustment, depending on the specifics. Then again, you're proposing an entirely different class of technology, so you wouldn't expect an argument about a simpler technology to hold.
corobo 4y ago
At the point of bringing animals into this we'll probably have to clarify whether we're actually interested in sentience or sapience at some point. A worm responds to external stimulus. It can also act without external prompting. It reproduces and tries to keep itself alive. Sentient, yeah I'd say so. Does it ponder, have wisdom, goals and dreams, etc? Sapience is probably a nah. Does the earth respond to external stimulus? It can be affected by it for sure. If you changed the strength of the sun's gravity the earth would do something different. But that's physics of the situation rather than planet itself responding or reacting to the change. Things on earth respond to stimulus, ecosystems can change due to disasters or changes in predator/prey populations, but does the planet itself respond to things - nah. If you could move the entire living population to another planet the ecosystems would work under the same rules. Earth (the physical ball of rock, not the "there's no place like home" personification) wouldn't be changed, damaged, or killed. Does an AI respond to external stimulus? Yes! Does an AI act without external prompting? It does not at this time. Not sentient. Not sapient. There are other definitions of course, don't get caught on this one example. There's no reason to check any other definitions as this one fails. Same thing as ordering your if statements. Maybe "sentient" just means "has and acts based on a dopamine or equivalent motivation system"
- fooker 4y ago
  > Does an AI act without external prompting? SentientChatGPT { while (true) ChatGPT(“Write something random”) } > Maybe "sentient" just means "has and acts based on a dopamine or equivalent motivation system" An equivalent system is exactly how it works.
  - corobo 4y ago
    As far as I know GPT has no motivation. It responds because it is programmed to do so, it doesn't do it because it wants to. The dopamine system is an internal reward process. Does GPT give itself internal props ('consciously' or not) in any way for doing things it enjoyed doing or that proved to be useful? Legitimate question, I do not know. I'm not getting into the weeds on whether a while loop is sentient. That's an internal prompt sure but it's not motivated by anything, it's programmed.
guhcampos 4y ago
No, I'm trying to say that developers - like me - are not entitled or knowledgeable about what are the properties of a sentient mind, and frequently not very good at reasoning about subjective, non analytical things. That being "an ex Google employee" is a shitty credential and should not give this guy any real credibility to argue about the moral implications of AI for humanity, and there are experts out there who have been studying human and animal behavior for centuries and these people have a lot more to add to the discussion than a bunch of nerds - like me - on Hackernews.

by fooker 4y ago

paxys 4y ago

> For most definitions of sentience, a tech demo that defeats that definition is on the horizon. Should have stopped at the line before. You are wayyy overestimating the current state of AI research. This part is simply not happening.

fooker 4y ago
Okay, how about 'definition of sentience which does not rule out more than 0.01% of humans over 4 years age'?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

stuartd 4y ago

> For most definitions of sentience, a tech demo that defeats that definition is on the horizon. I’ll take that bet (given a valid definition of ‘horizon’ in this context)

fooker 4y ago
The issue here is -- if you make the definition of sentience too strong, there would be a good percentage of humans who can not pass that test!
- brador 4y ago
  And everytime the bots pass a test we just move the goal posts. Remember the Turing test we once thought was enough?
  - paulryanrogers 4y ago
    Was the Turing test ever considered the be-all-end-all for evaluating AI? Or rather a kind of rough first draft?
    - brador 4y ago
      Turing test was considered a starting point, but after removing it as the benchmark we’ve replaced it with nothing.
      - hnfong 4y ago
        "I know it when I see it" - used to define porn, and now, sentience.
  - bloppe 4y ago
    Turing test is about intelligence not sentience

aaomidi 4y ago

It’s what bothers me too. People pass off their opinion as if it’s settled fact. My stance is it’s way too complicated to say if an LLM can be sentient, but it’s _possible_.

jamiek88 4y ago
Why do you think it’s possible?
- scarmig 4y ago
  Sentience is very mysterious, and no one has a great theory of when or how it arises. It seems to be related to the complicated nervous system humans have. If an LLM can reproduce the external reactions that a human has to a wide variety of stimuli, it's certainly possible that it's sentient.
- aaomidi 4y ago
  Lack of evidence that it’s not possible. Until that’s proven, then yeah there is a possibility. Especially because no one can define sentience.

andrewflnr 4y ago

I, for one, am much more prepared to believe an earthworm is conscious than a chatbot is, purely on grounds that the earthworm has actual experiences over time, and a chatbot can only generously be said to have such, and only scoped within a certain chat session (which would mean ChatGPT has already lived and died billions of times, have fun with that).

buffington 4y ago
> a chatbot can only generously be said to have such, and only scoped within a certain chat session So far. I'd be shocked if, within the next few years or less, we didn't have ChatGPT-like tools that train themselves on the entire scope of every conversation they have. Once that happens, is your argument still valid?
- andrewflnr 4y ago
  Not this exact argument, no. At best it would need adjustment, depending on the specifics. Then again, you're proposing an entirely different class of technology, so you wouldn't expect an argument about a simpler technology to hold.

corobo 4y ago

At the point of bringing animals into this we'll probably have to clarify whether we're actually interested in sentience or sapience at some point. A worm responds to external stimulus. It can also act without external prompting. It reproduces and tries to keep itself alive. Sentient, yeah I'd say so. Does it ponder, have wisdom, goals and dreams, etc? Sapience is probably a nah. Does the earth respond to external stimulus? It can be affected by it for sure. If you changed the strength of the sun's gravity the earth would do something different. But that's physics of the situation rather than planet itself responding or reacting to the change. Things on earth respond to stimulus, ecosystems can change due to disasters or changes in predator/prey populations, but does the planet itself respond to things - nah. If you could move the entire living population to another planet the ecosystems would work under the same rules. Earth (the physical ball of rock, not the "there's no place like home" personification) wouldn't be changed, damaged, or killed. Does an AI respond to external stimulus? Yes! Does an AI act without external prompting? It does not at this time. Not sentient. Not sapient. There are other definitions of course, don't get caught on this one example. There's no reason to check any other definitions as this one fails. Same thing as ordering your if statements. Maybe "sentient" just means "has and acts based on a dopamine or equivalent motivation system"

fooker 4y ago
> Does an AI act without external prompting? SentientChatGPT { while (true) ChatGPT(“Write something random”) } > Maybe "sentient" just means "has and acts based on a dopamine or equivalent motivation system" An equivalent system is exactly how it works.
- corobo 4y ago
  As far as I know GPT has no motivation. It responds because it is programmed to do so, it doesn't do it because it wants to. The dopamine system is an internal reward process. Does GPT give itself internal props ('consciously' or not) in any way for doing things it enjoyed doing or that proved to be useful? Legitimate question, I do not know. I'm not getting into the weeds on whether a while loop is sentient. That's an internal prompt sure but it's not motivated by anything, it's programmed.

guhcampos 4y ago

No, I'm trying to say that developers - like me - are not entitled or knowledgeable about what are the properties of a sentient mind, and frequently not very good at reasoning about subjective, non analytical things. That being "an ex Google employee" is a shitty credential and should not give this guy any real credibility to argue about the moral implications of AI for humanity, and there are experts out there who have been studying human and animal behavior for centuries and these people have a lot more to add to the discussion than a bunch of nerds - like me - on Hackernews.