6 ms·

I've never understood what people see in this story. Meat is a complex organization of trillions of self-replicating machines, each of which (besides red blood

by shpx 3y ago

I've never understood what people see in this story. Meat is a complex organization of trillions of self-replicating machines, each of which (besides red blood cells maybe) is also incredibly complex... much more advanced than anything human minds have been able to build. I can't imagine what a sentient entity would have to be made out of or how much less "efficient" or stable it would have to be than me for me to find it amusing. If it turns out that some slow geological process or a momentary dust cloud are actually self aware, the last thing I would do is laugh. Is it just an abstract association that we're wet inside whereas computer chips are dry? That's just where our technology is right now, it largely reflects how our brains can't simulate fluid dynamics or conceive self replicating distributed systems efficiently enough so we resort to designing simple, solid state things.

VoodooJuJu 3y ago
It's just a cute little sci-fi story, that's all, nothing serious.
Grimblewald 3y ago
my take on it is the absurdity of denying capacity to something simply because you look down on it for one reason or another. If there are signs that a thing does a thing, then it does it. It should not be weird that this thing does it, we should simply update our internal model to better reflect reality as we now know it and move on. To flip it around, it is equally absurd to say computers can't be sentient because they're just math, or just minerals and electricity etc.
kragen 3y ago
i think the point of the story is exactly what you've gotten from it namely, it's absurd to dismiss the possibility of self-awareness in some system because it's built out of parts different from the parts other self-aware systems you're familiar with are built out of a useful thing to keep in mind when the stochastic parrots start squawking about how large language models aren't actually intelligent shpxvat vf terng
- blackmesaind 3y ago
  The goalposts for intelligence always seem to change with each new foundation model that comes out. As long as people can understand the principles behind why a model works, it no longer seems intelligent. hvsm bsjsf sldsqh fch tcifhssb
  - kragen 3y ago
    zaf 14, ngf uf ue zaf ea tmdp fa ruzp agf itmf dafmfuaz kag pup
    - blackmesaind 3y ago
      xrl vf lbh yyg vrn vsh viazo n ozgbrrkv cftuxi?!
- boringuser2 3y ago
  But they aren't, and there is no obvious vector for them to develop the capability.
  - kragen 3y ago
    while they don't yet rise to the level i would describe as 'intelligent' without qualifications, they do seem to be less unintelligent than most of the humans, and in particular most of the ones criticizing them in this way, who consistently repeat specific criticisms applicable to years-ago systems which have no factual connection to current reality
    - boringuser2 3y ago
      It doesn't matter how it "appears". A disembodied paragraph that I've transmitted to you can appear to be intelligent or not, but it only really matters in the sense that you can ascribe that intellect to an agent. The LLM isn't an agent and no intellect can be ascribed to it. It is a device actual intelligent agents have made and ascribing it intellect is equally as erroneous.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
data_vault 3y ago
This is literature, it can be interpreted as how deeply we judge those who don't look like us.
jvanderbot 3y ago
The point I took away is that almost all biological life is optimized for energy efficiency in its ecological niche. Any interplanetary species would be beyond those constraints, and would either evolve or engineer their way out of them as soon as possible to, you know, live! Not to mention eradicate disease, travel the galaxy, etc.
kolinko 3y ago
Actually, the story doesn't say that it's machines if I can see correctly. It might just as well be other evolved organisms, just not protein/"meat" based.
- throw310822 3y ago
  Makes you wonder how can they have a concept of "meat", let alone such a dismissive one. We call "meat" the animal tissue that we eat as food- so either here "meat" is an inadequate term for "organic matter", or we have the curious case of an alien lifeform that eats organic matter while not being itself organic. In any case, being non-organic, it's not clear where they might have gained such contemptuous familiarity with organic matter- although it's clear from the story that they know about it much less than they think.
  - huytersd 3y ago
    It’s not hard to imagine aliens knowing about organic matter since those are universal. I could see a disdain for it if that’s where they started and then “ascended”. Much like we might view crude stone tools compared to say the LHC. Or how we view a single celled organism.
  - philwelch 3y ago
    English has separate terms for "flesh" and "meat" for complicated reasons, with "meat" having a stronger food implication. But I think the story uses "meat" because it's a funnier word in that context.
  - mr_toad 3y ago
    > Makes you wonder how can they have a concept of "meat" Maybe they have encountered organic life before, but since it hadn’t invented radio they didn’t realise it was sapient, or even sentient.
tim333 3y ago
My recollection is that there was quite a lot of debate back then on whether machines would be able to think or be conscious with arguments on the can't think side being Searle's Chinese Room and similar (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room), which I always thought was a bit silly and people don't seem to take seriously now but did back in 1991. The Made of Meat story was quite a nice counter argument to that.
- tarsinge 3y ago
  The argument that sentience can't derive from computation alone because computations can be slowed down and done by hand still hold for me. The piece of paper written on or the silicon doesn't acquire different properties because what the operation will be used for, the GPU doesn't differentiate between graphic rendering and weight computation when it's adding 1. That's in opposition with animal brains that not only do computations but interact with real-world matter/fields directly. With that said of course we don't know if human like sentience is a prerequisite to (super)human level intelligence. But recent advancements in AI tends to diminish the argument sentience is a side effect of intelligence though.
  - Mr_Minderbinder 3y ago
    > With that said of course we don't know if human like sentience is a prerequisite to (super)human level intelligence. But recent advancements in AI tends to diminish the argument sentience is a side effect of intelligence though. We already know the answer to this and it is no, it is not a pre-requisite unless "sentience" is itself an emergent property of intelligence. Hutter's mathematical formulation of an optimally intelligent agent (AIXI) is not computable but approximations of it are, that is to say super-human intelligence IS just a computable function (as human intelligence is resource bound and suboptimal) with no extra "sentience" required. The only limiting factor at this point is the computational resources to compute this function, with the resources we have now it is still at the "toy" stage: playing noughts and crosses and Pac-Man etc. People used to think that "creativity" was required for playing chess... clearly those people had not heard of Minimax.
  - 3y ago
adriancr 3y ago
Story is a hypothetical answer to why we haven't made contact with other intelligent life. That xenophobic aliens are choosing to ignore us because of inherent differences. This is how discrimination would look like if you're on the receiving end without your knowledge.

by shpx 3y ago

VoodooJuJu 3y ago

It's just a cute little sci-fi story, that's all, nothing serious.

Grimblewald 3y ago

my take on it is the absurdity of denying capacity to something simply because you look down on it for one reason or another. If there are signs that a thing does a thing, then it does it. It should not be weird that this thing does it, we should simply update our internal model to better reflect reality as we now know it and move on. To flip it around, it is equally absurd to say computers can't be sentient because they're just math, or just minerals and electricity etc.

kragen 3y ago

i think the point of the story is exactly what you've gotten from it namely, it's absurd to dismiss the possibility of self-awareness in some system because it's built out of parts different from the parts other self-aware systems you're familiar with are built out of a useful thing to keep in mind when the stochastic parrots start squawking about how large language models aren't actually intelligent shpxvat vf terng

blackmesaind 3y ago
The goalposts for intelligence always seem to change with each new foundation model that comes out. As long as people can understand the principles behind why a model works, it no longer seems intelligent. hvsm bsjsf sldsqh fch tcifhssb
- kragen 3y ago
  zaf 14, ngf uf ue zaf ea tmdp fa ruzp agf itmf dafmfuaz kag pup
  - blackmesaind 3y ago
    xrl vf lbh yyg vrn vsh viazo n ozgbrrkv cftuxi?!
boringuser2 3y ago
But they aren't, and there is no obvious vector for them to develop the capability.
- kragen 3y ago
  while they don't yet rise to the level i would describe as 'intelligent' without qualifications, they do seem to be less unintelligent than most of the humans, and in particular most of the ones criticizing them in this way, who consistently repeat specific criticisms applicable to years-ago systems which have no factual connection to current reality
  - boringuser2 3y ago
    It doesn't matter how it "appears". A disembodied paragraph that I've transmitted to you can appear to be intelligent or not, but it only really matters in the sense that you can ascribe that intellect to an agent. The LLM isn't an agent and no intellect can be ascribed to it. It is a device actual intelligent agents have made and ascribing it intellect is equally as erroneous.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

data_vault 3y ago

This is literature, it can be interpreted as how deeply we judge those who don't look like us.

jvanderbot 3y ago

The point I took away is that almost all biological life is optimized for energy efficiency in its ecological niche. Any interplanetary species would be beyond those constraints, and would either evolve or engineer their way out of them as soon as possible to, you know, live! Not to mention eradicate disease, travel the galaxy, etc.

kolinko 3y ago

Actually, the story doesn't say that it's machines if I can see correctly. It might just as well be other evolved organisms, just not protein/"meat" based.

throw310822 3y ago
Makes you wonder how can they have a concept of "meat", let alone such a dismissive one. We call "meat" the animal tissue that we eat as food- so either here "meat" is an inadequate term for "organic matter", or we have the curious case of an alien lifeform that eats organic matter while not being itself organic. In any case, being non-organic, it's not clear where they might have gained such contemptuous familiarity with organic matter- although it's clear from the story that they know about it much less than they think.
- huytersd 3y ago
  It’s not hard to imagine aliens knowing about organic matter since those are universal. I could see a disdain for it if that’s where they started and then “ascended”. Much like we might view crude stone tools compared to say the LHC. Or how we view a single celled organism.
- philwelch 3y ago
  English has separate terms for "flesh" and "meat" for complicated reasons, with "meat" having a stronger food implication. But I think the story uses "meat" because it's a funnier word in that context.
- mr_toad 3y ago
  > Makes you wonder how can they have a concept of "meat" Maybe they have encountered organic life before, but since it hadn’t invented radio they didn’t realise it was sapient, or even sentient.

tim333 3y ago

My recollection is that there was quite a lot of debate back then on whether machines would be able to think or be conscious with arguments on the can't think side being Searle's Chinese Room and similar (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room), which I always thought was a bit silly and people don't seem to take seriously now but did back in 1991. The Made of Meat story was quite a nice counter argument to that.

tarsinge 3y ago
The argument that sentience can't derive from computation alone because computations can be slowed down and done by hand still hold for me. The piece of paper written on or the silicon doesn't acquire different properties because what the operation will be used for, the GPU doesn't differentiate between graphic rendering and weight computation when it's adding 1. That's in opposition with animal brains that not only do computations but interact with real-world matter/fields directly. With that said of course we don't know if human like sentience is a prerequisite to (super)human level intelligence. But recent advancements in AI tends to diminish the argument sentience is a side effect of intelligence though.
- Mr_Minderbinder 3y ago
  > With that said of course we don't know if human like sentience is a prerequisite to (super)human level intelligence. But recent advancements in AI tends to diminish the argument sentience is a side effect of intelligence though. We already know the answer to this and it is no, it is not a pre-requisite unless "sentience" is itself an emergent property of intelligence. Hutter's mathematical formulation of an optimally intelligent agent (AIXI) is not computable but approximations of it are, that is to say super-human intelligence IS just a computable function (as human intelligence is resource bound and suboptimal) with no extra "sentience" required. The only limiting factor at this point is the computational resources to compute this function, with the resources we have now it is still at the "toy" stage: playing noughts and crosses and Pac-Man etc. People used to think that "creativity" was required for playing chess... clearly those people had not heard of Minimax.
- 3y ago

adriancr 3y ago

Story is a hypothetical answer to why we haven't made contact with other intelligent life. That xenophobic aliens are choosing to ignore us because of inherent differences. This is how discrimination would look like if you're on the receiving end without your knowledge.