4 ms·

This is a specious argument. AI is not a species. What drives this need to deify AI?

by baremetal 3y ago

lowercased 3y ago
> What drives this need to deify AI Humans seem to want to deify a lot of things. I think it's in our nature.
kelseyfrog 3y ago
Conversely, what drives the need to other AI?
- curiousllama 3y ago
  Bruh, it’s a rock
  - kelseyfrog 3y ago
    Except, it's not quite like a rock either.
    - shrimp_emoji 3y ago
      It's poisoned sand we taught to think!
      - BanazirGalbasi 3y ago
        With lightning!
- mrtranscendence 3y ago
  Why do we “other” notepads, coffee cups, and more traditional statistical models? Current AI is not sentient, does not have wants or desires, and cannot experience pain or joy. I don’t think I need to give GT-4 the same respect I’d give a human (or a non-human animal).
  - kelseyfrog 3y ago
    Is that simply "vibes"? In which way would one ground the category sentience? It almost sounds like an argument from consequences: - It's preposterous to treat GPT as if it were conscious. - Therefore it cannot be conscious. I'm not quite convinced this is a watertight argument. Maybe I'm misunderstanding your reasoning?
    - mrtranscendence 3y ago
      I wasn’t making an argument, I was making a statement. But no, I don’t believe GPT-4 is conscious, because we have no evidence that statistical models — even complicated ones — are the sorts of things that can be conscious. If there’s an argument that simply being a better, larger statistical model implies consciousness, I would love to hear it.
      - kelseyfrog 3y ago
        Right, and you reasoned your way to the statement because you wouldn't just make a statement without thinking it through. You'll be the first to agree, though because you're reasonable and you know how this works, is that the absence of evidence is not evidence for absence. The case for "Current AI is not sentient" as you put it can't be grounded in "we don't have evidence for its sentience." That's exactly why I asked about your epistemology of sentience and you made references to things that are all, as far as I can tell, self-reportable, and queries we can make to LLMs. Even so, I'm not getting the sense that doing that experiment would convince you - there seems to be a bigger reason why you think AI couldn't be sentient that goes beyond these qualities. Lastly, and this is important, the framing of, "If you have a better explanation, I'm open to being convinced" is a cognitive dead-end. A line of reasoning should stand on its own merit. We can probe a line of reasoning to determine whether it's sound and valid without necessarily replacing it with a substitute model. Or in other words, we shouldn't feel the need to accept an invalid of unsound model even if we don't have a replacement. I know this can be unfulfilling, but the drive to explain shouldn't override the need for our working models to be sound and valid and I hope you agree.
golemotron 3y ago
> This is a specious argument. AI is not a species. Once we can ask an AI to create another AI..

This is a specious argument. AI is not a species. What drives this need to deify AI?

lowercased 3y ago

> What drives this need to deify AI Humans seem to want to deify a lot of things. I think it's in our nature.

kelseyfrog 3y ago

Conversely, what drives the need to other AI?

curiousllama 3y ago
Bruh, it’s a rock
- kelseyfrog 3y ago
  Except, it's not quite like a rock either.
  - shrimp_emoji 3y ago
    It's poisoned sand we taught to think!
    - BanazirGalbasi 3y ago
      With lightning!
mrtranscendence 3y ago
Why do we “other” notepads, coffee cups, and more traditional statistical models? Current AI is not sentient, does not have wants or desires, and cannot experience pain or joy. I don’t think I need to give GT-4 the same respect I’d give a human (or a non-human animal).
- kelseyfrog 3y ago
  Is that simply "vibes"? In which way would one ground the category sentience? It almost sounds like an argument from consequences: - It's preposterous to treat GPT as if it were conscious. - Therefore it cannot be conscious. I'm not quite convinced this is a watertight argument. Maybe I'm misunderstanding your reasoning?
  - mrtranscendence 3y ago
    I wasn’t making an argument, I was making a statement. But no, I don’t believe GPT-4 is conscious, because we have no evidence that statistical models — even complicated ones — are the sorts of things that can be conscious. If there’s an argument that simply being a better, larger statistical model implies consciousness, I would love to hear it.
    - kelseyfrog 3y ago
      Right, and you reasoned your way to the statement because you wouldn't just make a statement without thinking it through. You'll be the first to agree, though because you're reasonable and you know how this works, is that the absence of evidence is not evidence for absence. The case for "Current AI is not sentient" as you put it can't be grounded in "we don't have evidence for its sentience." That's exactly why I asked about your epistemology of sentience and you made references to things that are all, as far as I can tell, self-reportable, and queries we can make to LLMs. Even so, I'm not getting the sense that doing that experiment would convince you - there seems to be a bigger reason why you think AI couldn't be sentient that goes beyond these qualities. Lastly, and this is important, the framing of, "If you have a better explanation, I'm open to being convinced" is a cognitive dead-end. A line of reasoning should stand on its own merit. We can probe a line of reasoning to determine whether it's sound and valid without necessarily replacing it with a substitute model. Or in other words, we shouldn't feel the need to accept an invalid of unsound model even if we don't have a replacement. I know this can be unfulfilling, but the drive to explain shouldn't override the need for our working models to be sound and valid and I hope you agree.

golemotron 3y ago

> This is a specious argument. AI is not a species. Once we can ask an AI to create another AI..