4 ms·

Predators and herbivores kill and eat, fungi decompose. Even plants grow towards sunlight. The LLM sits and hopes someone is paying for the lights to stay on.

verdverm 3y ago
When did LLMs gain hope or idle contemplation?
- c_crank 3y ago
  They probably don't have those either, that's just me anthropomorphizing them. Regardless, their autonomy is lacking.
ben_w 3y ago
Tilting a solar panel towards the sun isn't exactly rocket science. In fact, this is simple enough I just asked ChatGPT and it spat out some ASCII art for a circuit diagram. Also: all the other stuff you listed is still dependent on another entity.
- c_crank 3y ago
  What I'm trying to get at is that the AI lacks the ability to exploit these resources. Life is dependent on either other life or the sun. But a plant can naturally grow its own 'solar panels' and then make more plants. ChatGPT can generate a picture that tells some autonomous agent how to build a solar panel.
  - ben_w 3y ago
    ChatGPT isn't the only AI in the world (self driving trucks are one, many others constitute the simpler automated system used in factories that build the aluminium and the silicon and put it together to make a solar cell or a CPU); and even if ChatGPT was the only one, I don't accept that it's ability to create a business plan and investor pitch and convince humans to do that, is any less (at least in the ways that matter here) than an animal hunting for food, or a parasite using its host's assets for its own ends, or indeed most humans.
    - c_crank 3y ago
      The most basic parasite still can make more parasites and grow to the extent its biology allows. AIs are more like tools, where their usefulness convinces the makers to make more tools. Is the potter's wheel a parasite, for convincing us Homo Sapiens to sit around gathering clay for thousands of years?
      - ben_w 3y ago
        I really don't understand why you think that's a good point, sorry. Even if I just say "yes it's a tool" (some AI clearly are regardless of whether they all are or any demonstrations of them being able to run economically interesting tasks without intervention), not clear how what you're saying connects with the ideas raised in the article?
        c_crank 3y ago
        "The Darwinian evolution of tools" is a statement that makes little sense because Darwin working with things that were alive - undesigned and capable of reproduction. There may be some similarities, but the processes behind each thing are separate enough to produce very different outcomes.
cortic 3y ago
LLM kill and eat information and energy, some de-compile. Some grow intellectually toward flowing electrons. predators depend on herbivores depend on plants which 'hopes' someone is paying for the lights to stay on. Your point might just be bias.
- c_crank 3y ago
  I'm biased towards the success animals and plants display in the non silicon realm. Animals like crows can reproduce and spread across various land forms only needing the inputs of food and water. They do not need some other species like humans to build complex machines and then to copy or build them on those machines.
  - ben_w 3y ago
    The food crows eat is built by a complex machine: other life.
    - c_crank 3y ago
      Life is not a machine. The food crows eat was not built. It grew. Life needs energy, from the sun, but not a designer.
      - ben_w 3y ago
        > Life is not a machine Why does this matter? The dependency on others is present regardless. The crow cannot photosynthesise, it ultimately depends on other entities which do. If we made a vat which produced food electrochemically from PV, that a mechanism is involved neither adds to nor subtracts from the crow. If an AI was transcribed from silicon to a bunch of neurons grown in a petri dish — or even by overriding and rewiring an organic crow brain — it neither adds to nor subtracts from the AI. (If the AI isn't specially trained to keep the crow alive this will end badly, but that is a separate issue, and one that can be ignored because this is all hypothetical).
        3y ago

verdverm 3y ago

When did LLMs gain hope or idle contemplation?

c_crank 3y ago
They probably don't have those either, that's just me anthropomorphizing them. Regardless, their autonomy is lacking.

ben_w 3y ago

Tilting a solar panel towards the sun isn't exactly rocket science. In fact, this is simple enough I just asked ChatGPT and it spat out some ASCII art for a circuit diagram. Also: all the other stuff you listed is still dependent on another entity.

c_crank 3y ago
What I'm trying to get at is that the AI lacks the ability to exploit these resources. Life is dependent on either other life or the sun. But a plant can naturally grow its own 'solar panels' and then make more plants. ChatGPT can generate a picture that tells some autonomous agent how to build a solar panel.
- ben_w 3y ago
  ChatGPT isn't the only AI in the world (self driving trucks are one, many others constitute the simpler automated system used in factories that build the aluminium and the silicon and put it together to make a solar cell or a CPU); and even if ChatGPT was the only one, I don't accept that it's ability to create a business plan and investor pitch and convince humans to do that, is any less (at least in the ways that matter here) than an animal hunting for food, or a parasite using its host's assets for its own ends, or indeed most humans.
  - c_crank 3y ago
    The most basic parasite still can make more parasites and grow to the extent its biology allows. AIs are more like tools, where their usefulness convinces the makers to make more tools. Is the potter's wheel a parasite, for convincing us Homo Sapiens to sit around gathering clay for thousands of years?
    - ben_w 3y ago
      I really don't understand why you think that's a good point, sorry. Even if I just say "yes it's a tool" (some AI clearly are regardless of whether they all are or any demonstrations of them being able to run economically interesting tasks without intervention), not clear how what you're saying connects with the ideas raised in the article?
      - c_crank 3y ago
        "The Darwinian evolution of tools" is a statement that makes little sense because Darwin working with things that were alive - undesigned and capable of reproduction. There may be some similarities, but the processes behind each thing are separate enough to produce very different outcomes.

cortic 3y ago

LLM kill and eat information and energy, some de-compile. Some grow intellectually toward flowing electrons. predators depend on herbivores depend on plants which 'hopes' someone is paying for the lights to stay on. Your point might just be bias.

c_crank 3y ago
I'm biased towards the success animals and plants display in the non silicon realm. Animals like crows can reproduce and spread across various land forms only needing the inputs of food and water. They do not need some other species like humans to build complex machines and then to copy or build them on those machines.
- ben_w 3y ago
  The food crows eat is built by a complex machine: other life.
  - c_crank 3y ago
    Life is not a machine. The food crows eat was not built. It grew. Life needs energy, from the sun, but not a designer.
    - ben_w 3y ago
      > Life is not a machine Why does this matter? The dependency on others is present regardless. The crow cannot photosynthesise, it ultimately depends on other entities which do. If we made a vat which produced food electrochemically from PV, that a mechanism is involved neither adds to nor subtracts from the crow. If an AI was transcribed from silicon to a bunch of neurons grown in a petri dish — or even by overriding and rewiring an organic crow brain — it neither adds to nor subtracts from the AI. (If the AI isn't specially trained to keep the crow alive this will end badly, but that is a separate issue, and one that can be ignored because this is all hypothetical).
      - 3y ago