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I'm baffled that we don't spend more time trying to understand sentience on earth. There's so much of it, it's so clearly intelligent, and it would be so useful
by TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
I'm baffled that we don't spend more time trying to understand sentience on earth. There's so much of it, it's so clearly intelligent, and it would be so useful for SETI etc.
But for some reason there's a bias towards assuming that "intelligent" means "can do differential equations" - which doesn't even apply to most humans.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> baffled that we don't spend more time trying to understand sentience on earth Accidentally Ted Chiang [1]. [1] https://nautil.us/the-great-silence-237510/ https://nautil.us/the-great-silence-237510/
- stavros 3y agoWe're only looking for extraterrestrial intelligence because we secretly like to think that we're unique in the universe.
- micromacrofoot 3y agoIsn't it one of those things that's potentially useful for further research... but doesn't really have an apparent practical application? unfortunately we tend to prioritize things by what they can produce
- lovemenot 3y agoSince the Enlightenment, it has mainly been our use of language that underpinned humans' purported uniqueness. Prior to that, it was religion. LLMs will be a challenge to the sense of entitlement which derives from this so-called uniqueness. I suspect another attempt to move those goal-posts is imminent. >> I'm baffled that we don't spend more time trying to understand sentience on earth I wonder whether there exists enough tagged big data to train an LLM on any non-human language. If not, chat apps like this parrot app could be a step in the right direction.