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This is potentially huge. LLMs have shown how they can encompass patterns unknown to its creators and effectively use it. If for some reason, we can actually st
by tomohelix 4y ago
This is potentially huge. LLMs have shown how they can encompass patterns unknown to its creators and effectively use it. If for some reason, we can actually start seeing something resembling higher thought patterns in animals, that can up end society.
But still, we already had lots of evidence how some animals like cetacean and primate are potentially sentient. Many people just don't want to admit it and we can't convince them that human isn't anything special. In the end this may just be another piece of proof on a pile that get ignored.
- IIAOPSW 4y agoIt is wholly consistent to believe that your actual parrots are also statistical parrots. That's not the same thing as "can't be convinced".
- AlecSchueler 4y agoI've actually stopped believing in my own sentience.
- feanaro 4y agoWhat does that even mean?
- nwatson 4y agoWe live in Skinner boxes.
- lamp987 4y agoLLM-induced psychosis. The new health hazard in the town.
- postsantum 4y agoNot OP, but same here. I feel I am a sentient person only when fully concentrated. But when relaxed, it's stochastic autopilot, both in speech and actions I believe I've seen an article touching this topic here, long before GPT. Will link if I find it
- feanaro 3y agoWhat you're describing is a lack of volition ("free will"), not sentience. Even on autopilot, you still perceive things, meaning sensations and things constantly appear in your mindscape, right? That is sentience.
- flangola7 4y agoI think you're confusing sentience with thinking intelligence
- haswell 4y agoSentience is usually defined as the ability to perceive/feel things. One way to see this is that sentience and language processing are just two aspects available to us in consciousness. We are also not identical to our thoughts or feelings, but most people never pause to contemplate this. I suspect the autopilot you describe is really closer to our default state, but it’s easier to notice when in a calm state and the “me-ness” of actions/thoughts doesn’t feel so strong.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- taneq 4y agoWhat's really interesting is that most of us feel we're our "best selves" when we reach a state of flow. We're in the zone. We're totally non-self-conscious. The only description I've ever seen of consciousness that makes any sense is that it's a kind of condition monitoring system for our minds, a cross-check evolved to catch some of the cognitive mistakes that the main machinery of our minds tend to make from time to time. And because our whole brain is linked into this system, including itself, we get that infinite regress of omphaloskepsis that we call "consciousness."
- Wowfunhappy 4y agoPersonally, I feel I'm at my most "conscious" when I'm in a flow state. I'm laser focused on one thing, but I'm actively thinking about that thing very hard! I don't do a lot of metacognition (thinking about my thinking) while I'm in a flow state, which maybe was your point. But I can think about my prior flow state thinking after the fact, and I'm aware of how much my mind was working, and what that felt like.
- kingkawn 4y agoself-explanatory that they aren't able to tell you
- idiotsecant 4y agoI don't think it's meaningful to say that something capable of stopping belief in it's own sentience does not possess sentience, at least not without some creature linguistic torture of the definition of sentience. I do, however, appreciate your point and agree with the spirit of your post, if not the exact content. I definitely feel like I am two 'selves' - one of which is capable of rational thought, foresight, rational modeling of the world around me, etc. That self is probably running things 25% of the time. The other self is emotional, understands the world intuitively for all of the benefits and drawbacks that carries, and seeks short term satisfaction of needs above all else. I don't mean this in a hand-wavey new age holistic way, I mean it in a very concrete sense. I can detect that change in myself when I switch from the 'monkey pilot' to the 'human pilot'. Mindfulness and concentration is required to bring the human back. I think I have below average executive functioning skills, and I spend a lot of my 'human pilot' time thinking about how I can stay in this mode longer but it's not trivial to make that happen. I think my 'human pilot' is definitely sentient. My 'monkey pilot' might not be depending on the definition.
- kelseyfrog 4y agoI applaud you for your honesty, introspection, and open mindedness. If anything, LLMs have exposed our inconsistency in how we ground sentience, consciousness, and subjective experience. At times we thought we were talking about the same things, but we've clearly have been tossing terms about. LLMs have, at least/last, given us the opportunity to reexamine important social ontologies. Better late than never.
- atlantic 4y agoIf you weren't sentient, you couldn't believe or disbelieve anything. Or perform any other mental action. Read Descartes.
- AlecSchueler 3y agoI've read Descartes. ChatGPT believes things and performs mental actions as well.
- randomcarbloke 3y agoI can't read Descartes as I am insentient.
- bearmode 4y agoLots of animals exhibit clear sentience, it's sapience that we're unsure of.
- beebeepka 4y agoJust move the bar of human specialness every time we "discover" humans aren't that much different than everything else. Wars will be fought over this.
- soco 4y agoWell there are humans too of which sapience we are not very convinced, so this overlap is gonna be a drag.
- taneq 4y agoReminds me of that quote about the overlap in intellect between the smartest bears and the dumbest campers being larger than you'd think.
- PartiallyTyped 4y agoI am not sure about wars, but there will always be a backlash as the margin for human "exceptionalism" gets tighter.
- hnbad 4y agoWe still have surprisingly widespread belief in outdated ideas like young earth creationism or a literally flat Earth. Evolution is rejected by broad swathes of the American population despite even the Catholic church having incorporated it into its mythology. I think if anything the backlash is a constant, true believers have no problem already living in a parallel reality that denies our own.
- hnbad 4y agoWhy would we fight wars over whether specific animals are sapient? We have no trouble killing, imprisoning and torturing humans. Sapience is a philosophical distinction, not a practical one.
- gumballindie 4y ago> Many people just don't want to admit it and we can't convince them that human isn't anything special. Cant we then just wait for animals to develop an ai that translates to our languages?
- blooalien 4y agoGive the monkeys a few hundred years after the genetic experiments make them super-intelligent and they take over the world and yeah … probably …
- gumballindie 4y agoDepends on how we define monkeys, years, genetics, intelligence, and world. Pick one, change its meaning and then let's revisit this.
- Geezus-42 4y agoTheir fairy tale books says animals exist for humans, so good luck changing their minds. Genesis 9:3 "Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything."
- taneq 4y agoSo, uh... other humans live and move about, too. Behold, a meal!
- idiotsecant 4y agoAnd on whence the LORD sayeth 'no....I didn't mean like that!!!' but it wasth too lateth.
- uni_rule 4y agoFor man was already eating others of mankind out!
- mensetmanusman 4y agoYou’re assuming minds exist, which many consider a fairy tale.
- mistermann 4y agoAlso engaging in mind reading, a supernatural, pseudo-scientific (tsk!) claim.
- amitport 4y agoTo be fair the Hebrew version use the word "remesh" which is not clearly translated to "everything that moves", but more to "invertebrates" or "insects" (I do not know what the author of Genesis actually meant, but the point is that it is not a clear translation). Additionally, in Genesis 1:24-26, remesh is listed among other types of animals such as beasts of the land and birds of the sky, so it is pretty clear that it is not meant as all animals. In these phrases remesh appears in the English translation as "creeping thing". https://biblehub.com/hebrew/remes_7431.htm https://biblehub.com/hebrew/remes_7431.htm