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In GEB Hofstadter dismisses the idea that AI could understand / compose / feel music like a human. I thought about this a lot when I started using GPT, especial

In GEB Hofstadter dismisses the idea that AI could understand / compose / feel music like a human. I thought about this a lot when I started using GPT, especially early on when it demonstrated an ability to explain why things were funny or sad, intrinsically human qualities hitherto insulated from machine

mostlysimilar 3y ago
Repeating the words thousands of humans have written about emotion doesn’t meant it feels them. A sociopath could define empathy and still be missing the deeper experience behind the emotion.
- FrustratedMonky 3y ago
  That can also be scary. I think you have a valid point, and that would mean the AI 'thinking' is more similar to a Sociopath. Can still be 'human' if just a broken human, or what some have also called 'alien'.
- namaria 3y ago
  A chatbot nearly capable of passing the Chinese Room thought experiment test is pretty damn impressive. But I think people get too hung up on the one golden moement/tech/product/innovation that changes everything. We've been riding a nearly vertical population, wealth and computer capacity curve for nearly two generations now. We are living through the singularity. Things are already like they have never been before. Billions of people can expect some level of social security, justice and opportunity to pursue life changing income now. This is nothing short of amazing. For most of History most people have been hard working, sickly and oppressed farmers.
- yanderekko 3y ago
  Someday, when the AI releases a nanobot swarm comes to kill us all, a philosopher's last words will be "yes, but is it truly intelligent?" before he is broken down into biodiesel that will be used to power the paperclip factories.
lr4444lr 3y ago
Why, because it figured out sentiment groupings of words and phrases? There's lots of humor and tragedy from writers of eras past that just don't really land well with modern audiences unless they've studied and acclimated themselves to the culture.
jameshart 3y ago
I don’t know I’d agree that that was the message of GEB at all. In fact more than anything GEB and I am a Strange Loop convincingly argue that consciousness, understanding, and feeling arise from systems that are no more complex than an information system that feeds on its own output. Though he is troubled by what kind of feedback it is that is required to make that loop into a mind. Hofstadter is why I am not sure why AI researchers feel so confident in saying ‘LLMs can’t be thinking, they’re just repeatedly generating the next token’ - I don’t think there’s any evidence that you need anything more complicated than that to make a mind, so how can you be certain you haven’t? GEB may have been dismissive of the idea that the approaches that were being taken in AI research at the time were likely to result in intelligence - but I don’t think GEB is pessimistic about the possibility of artificial consciousness at all.
- jackconsidine 3y ago
  To be clear I didn't say this was the idea of GEB, but something DH did say verbatim

mostlysimilar 3y ago

Repeating the words thousands of humans have written about emotion doesn’t meant it feels them. A sociopath could define empathy and still be missing the deeper experience behind the emotion.

FrustratedMonky 3y ago
That can also be scary. I think you have a valid point, and that would mean the AI 'thinking' is more similar to a Sociopath. Can still be 'human' if just a broken human, or what some have also called 'alien'.
namaria 3y ago
A chatbot nearly capable of passing the Chinese Room thought experiment test is pretty damn impressive. But I think people get too hung up on the one golden moement/tech/product/innovation that changes everything. We've been riding a nearly vertical population, wealth and computer capacity curve for nearly two generations now. We are living through the singularity. Things are already like they have never been before. Billions of people can expect some level of social security, justice and opportunity to pursue life changing income now. This is nothing short of amazing. For most of History most people have been hard working, sickly and oppressed farmers.
yanderekko 3y ago
Someday, when the AI releases a nanobot swarm comes to kill us all, a philosopher's last words will be "yes, but is it truly intelligent?" before he is broken down into biodiesel that will be used to power the paperclip factories.

lr4444lr 3y ago

Why, because it figured out sentiment groupings of words and phrases? There's lots of humor and tragedy from writers of eras past that just don't really land well with modern audiences unless they've studied and acclimated themselves to the culture.

jameshart 3y ago

I don’t know I’d agree that that was the message of GEB at all. In fact more than anything GEB and I am a Strange Loop convincingly argue that consciousness, understanding, and feeling arise from systems that are no more complex than an information system that feeds on its own output. Though he is troubled by what kind of feedback it is that is required to make that loop into a mind. Hofstadter is why I am not sure why AI researchers feel so confident in saying ‘LLMs can’t be thinking, they’re just repeatedly generating the next token’ - I don’t think there’s any evidence that you need anything more complicated than that to make a mind, so how can you be certain you haven’t? GEB may have been dismissive of the idea that the approaches that were being taken in AI research at the time were likely to result in intelligence - but I don’t think GEB is pessimistic about the possibility of artificial consciousness at all.

jackconsidine 3y ago
To be clear I didn't say this was the idea of GEB, but something DH did say verbatim