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The counterpoint to this is always "models work with numerical vectors and we translate those to/from words" These things feel sentient because they talk like
by RC_ITR 3y ago
The counterpoint to this is always "models work with numerical vectors and we translate those to/from words"
These things feel sentient because they talk like us, but if I told you that I have a machine that takes 1 20k-dimensional vector and turns it into another meaningful 20k-dimensional vector, you definitely wouldn't call that sentience.
- dmd 3y agoWhat if I told you I have a machine that takes 1 20k-dimensional vector and turns it into another meaningful 20k-dimensional vector, but the machine is made of a bunch of proteins and fats and liquids and gels? Would you be willing to call it sentient now?
- RC_ITR 3y agoBro, I can't even do 5 dimensional vector math. EDIT: I couldn't help but make the joke, but I am certain my brain is doing zero dot products as a type this. What these models do is just different. We should consider what that means, and the 'sentience' jump is just lazy thinking to avoid that.
- xg15 3y agoSorry to tell you, but your brain is doing millions of dot products - it's what the biochemical reactions in the synapses between neurons amount to. We already know how the brain works on that level, we just don't know how it works on a higher level.
- RC_ITR 3y agoSorry to tell you, but neurons do not follow a dot product structure in any way shape or form beyond basic metaphor. I mean fine I’ll play along - is it whole numbers? Floating points? How many integers? Are we certain that neurons are even deterministic? The point I’m making is this whole overuse of metaphor (I agree it’s an ok metaphor) belittles both what the brain and these models are doing. I get that we call them perceptrons and neurons, but friend, don’t tell me that a complex chemical system that we don’t understand is “matrix math” because dendrites exist. It’s kind of rude to your own endocrine system tbh. Transformers and your brain are both extremely impressive and extremely different things. Doing things like adding biological-inspired noise and biological-inspired resilience might even make Transformers better! We don’t know! But we do know oversimplifying the model of the brain won’t help us get there!
- buzzscale 3y agoThat's ridiculous. You're asking me to believe in sentient meat? https://www.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writing/prose/text/thinkingMeat.html https://www.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writing/prose/text/think...
- __loam 3y ago[flagged]
- whimsicalism 3y agoThe people seeking to exclude numerical vectors as being possible to be involved in consciousness seem to me to be the ones that you should direct this ire at.
- __loam 3y ago[flagged]
- xg15 3y agoYes, and you wouldn't believe you're made out of cells as well. The brain can't see, hear, smell, etc directly and neither can it talk or move hands or feet. "All" it does is receive incoming nerve signals from sensor neurons (which are connected to our sensory organs) and emit outgoing nerve signals through motor neurons (which are connected to our muscles). So the "data format" is really not that different.
- NobleLie 3y agoAre you sure that is all the brain does?
- xg15 3y agoAs far as "inputs and outputs" are concerned, yes. (Well, not quite, I think there is also communication with the body going on through chemical signals - but even this doesn't have to do a lot with how we experience our senses) Not a neurologist, but that's about what you can read in basic biology textbooks.
- RC_ITR 3y agoWhat is the value of ignoring the endocrine system? There are plenty of inputs to the brain outside of neural signals and implying otherwise isn't even at the level of basic biology textbooks. I'll put it this way - what are the 'sensor nerve signals' that make us tired pray tell? Do models 'get tired'?