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> I mean, you're just a continuous chain of chemical reactions. Actually, I’m not. You have a ridiculous premise I will not entertain. It’s so misanthropic and

> I mean, you're just a continuous chain of chemical reactions. Actually, I’m not. You have a ridiculous premise I will not entertain. It’s so misanthropic and dehumanizing and contributes 0 to the book on what being a human even is.

deleted 4y ago
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piloto_ciego 4y ago
But, you are. We all are, I am too. There are emergent behaviors and properties that make us more important than simply the sum of our chemistry - at least I hope. But what if LLMs, could there be emergent behavior there that makes it more than simply the sum of its code?
- nemo44x 4y ago
  The idea of “emergent behaviors” is no better an explanation for say, human consciousness, than the idea that we were made in the image of a god. Emergent is just a way for an atheist to cover up that they have no idea. That chemical 1 + chemical 2 + electricity happens and is observed and the reason we can’t explain the other 99% is……emergent. Now I hear gravity must be emergent. What a useful tool to sound smart.
  - pixl97 4y ago
    > just a way for an atheist to cover up Ah, and there we have it. Emergence is just complexity. The problem with complexity is it takes a lot of time and massive amounts of effort so determine what it is in the computation (digital or quantum) that produces the effect, and is commonly not reducible. Bringing in an imaginary character in order to explain the complexity is just a failure of logic.
  - halgir 4y ago
    > Emergent is just a way for an atheist to cover up that they have no idea. We don't. I don't think many try to cover that up. Emergence just means that a system has properties not apparent from the parts going into it. It's not a tool to handwave away that fact and ascribe it to "emergent hocus pocus", it's a tool to frame the search for why that happens.
  - majkinetor 4y ago
    Emergant properties are well known and described thing in math and science.
mynameisvlad 4y ago
> Actually, I’m not. So what, exactly, are you? Dismissing someone’s point because it’s inconvenient and you don’t want to deal with it does nothing but erode your own.
- pegasus 4y ago
  IMO, the only realistic answer to that question is "we have no idea". Everything else is just taking wild, tenuous guesses. But LLMs have no desires of their own, which to me settles the question of rights.
  - mynameisvlad 4y ago
    > But LLMs have no desires of their own, which to me settles the question of rights. For now. The whole point of this discussion is that LLMs have been rapidly improving to the point where emergent properties are bound to come out. > IMO, the only realistic answer to that question is "we have no idea". So we have no idea what’s happening in our own brains, what’s happening in other animal’s brains to cause us to feel empathy for them, or what’s happening in a LLM’s “brain” but we can confidently say they should never have rights and we should never feel empathy for them? That seems a bit premature.
    - pegasus 4y ago
      Yes, I believe some careful and informed pondering leads one towards that conclusion. Hume's guillotine is an implacable philosophical device: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEUO6pjwFOo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEUO6pjwFOo (I warmly recommend all the content on that delightfully frightening channel)
  - pixl97 4y ago
    Read the Microsoft research paper that came out last week, focus specifically on the section that contains the following... "Equipping LLMs with agency and intrinsic motivation is a fascinating and important direction for future work."

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

piloto_ciego 4y ago

But, you are. We all are, I am too. There are emergent behaviors and properties that make us more important than simply the sum of our chemistry - at least I hope. But what if LLMs, could there be emergent behavior there that makes it more than simply the sum of its code?

nemo44x 4y ago
The idea of “emergent behaviors” is no better an explanation for say, human consciousness, than the idea that we were made in the image of a god. Emergent is just a way for an atheist to cover up that they have no idea. That chemical 1 + chemical 2 + electricity happens and is observed and the reason we can’t explain the other 99% is……emergent. Now I hear gravity must be emergent. What a useful tool to sound smart.
- pixl97 4y ago
  > just a way for an atheist to cover up Ah, and there we have it. Emergence is just complexity. The problem with complexity is it takes a lot of time and massive amounts of effort so determine what it is in the computation (digital or quantum) that produces the effect, and is commonly not reducible. Bringing in an imaginary character in order to explain the complexity is just a failure of logic.
- halgir 4y ago
  > Emergent is just a way for an atheist to cover up that they have no idea. We don't. I don't think many try to cover that up. Emergence just means that a system has properties not apparent from the parts going into it. It's not a tool to handwave away that fact and ascribe it to "emergent hocus pocus", it's a tool to frame the search for why that happens.
- majkinetor 4y ago
  Emergant properties are well known and described thing in math and science.

mynameisvlad 4y ago

> Actually, I’m not. So what, exactly, are you? Dismissing someone’s point because it’s inconvenient and you don’t want to deal with it does nothing but erode your own.

pegasus 4y ago
IMO, the only realistic answer to that question is "we have no idea". Everything else is just taking wild, tenuous guesses. But LLMs have no desires of their own, which to me settles the question of rights.
- mynameisvlad 4y ago
  > But LLMs have no desires of their own, which to me settles the question of rights. For now. The whole point of this discussion is that LLMs have been rapidly improving to the point where emergent properties are bound to come out. > IMO, the only realistic answer to that question is "we have no idea". So we have no idea what’s happening in our own brains, what’s happening in other animal’s brains to cause us to feel empathy for them, or what’s happening in a LLM’s “brain” but we can confidently say they should never have rights and we should never feel empathy for them? That seems a bit premature.
  - pegasus 4y ago
    Yes, I believe some careful and informed pondering leads one towards that conclusion. Hume's guillotine is an implacable philosophical device: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEUO6pjwFOo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEUO6pjwFOo (I warmly recommend all the content on that delightfully frightening channel)
- pixl97 4y ago
  Read the Microsoft research paper that came out last week, focus specifically on the section that contains the following... "Equipping LLMs with agency and intrinsic motivation is a fascinating and important direction for future work."