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> I'm simply saying that we don't know enough about sentience to turn such statements of belief into statements of fact We do! We can look at rocks and very cl
by smoldesu 3y ago
> I'm simply saying that we don't know enough about sentience to turn such statements of belief into statements of fact
We do! We can look at rocks and very clearly define them as non-sentient. If you disagree with that, you are not deferring to the overwhelming wealth of evidence that can prove rocks are not similar to us. Animists and panpsychics be damned, you only need thermodynamics to prove that we are not the same.
It's fine if you want to argue the uncertainty angle. I vehemently disagree with it though, and firmly believe that we can extend simple logic to conclude that LLMs are software, and software is not alive. Adding noise and 4.21gb of trained weights does not move the needle on that, for me.
- naasking 3y ago> you are not deferring to the overwhelming wealth of evidence that can prove rocks are not similar to us "Similarity to us" is not a comprehensive metric for sentience, that's the point. > firmly believe that we can extend simple logic to conclude that LLMs are software Yes, LLMs are software, so what? Whatever sentience is, it's an integral part of our information processing, and software does information processing. There is literally no reason to conclude that software cannot do the type of information processing that our brain does for sentience. Even if we agree that panpsychism is incorrect, I still do not agree that we know enough about sentience to claim that software cannot be sentient. I do not claim that LLMs are sentient, but they certainly could be, and the fact that they seem very intelligent, more intelligent than most humans in some ways, is a big red flag.
- smoldesu 3y agoFair enough. I just flat-out disagree; nothing I've seen suggests that software "could be" sentient. The burden of proof is yours, if you want to state that software has the potential for sentience.
- naasking 3y agoThe burden of proof has already been met. The Bekenstein Bound already tells us that any finite volume contains finite information, and any finite system can therefore be perfectly reproduced by a finite state machine. The human brain and body are finite volumes, therefore they can be perfectly replicated by a finite state machine. Unless you believe in some form of dualism, this reproduction necessarily includes sentience. Therefore, software can be sentient.
- smoldesu 3y agoIf things turn out to be that straightforward, then I'll be one hell of a fool.