7 ms·

So are you, if you abstract enough.

starbugs 3y ago
> So are you, if you abstract enough. Doubt. Explain, for instance, pain. How do you create that algorithmically? Or if you don't like to explain pain, how about love? You see, that's the problem with being caught up in the "technical person" identity completely. Reducing yourself down to an algorithm is not exactly healthy if you ask me. But it sure explains a lot about where the world is headed and why.
- throwing_away 3y ago
  If I need you to perform a task, I'm going to try and prevent you from experiencing pain by giving you clear requirements and time to complete the task. I'm not going to ask you to lift things heavier than you can, or to do math or programming that's beyond your known capabilities. My goal is going to be to find out what you're best at, then optimize my tasks to be aligned with your training and objectives. This is pretty much what I do with AI also.
  - starbugs 3y ago
    > If I need you to perform a task, I'm going to try and prevent you from experiencing pain by giving you clear requirements and time to complete the task. That doesn't explain what pain is. My question was how you would algorithmically create that? If I am as much a being as an algorithm, as you insulted, then sure thing there must be an algorithmic nature underlying my (or anyone's) pain?
    - throwing_away 3y ago
      I think you mean insinuated, not insulted (I hope I'm not being insulting). I'm not sure what answer would communicate the idea clearest, but: * If you want the AI version of pain, there are examples of attacks that cause it to bug out and malfunction. It's clearly not operating correctly, and I think someone famously got Bing to say it wants to go on a rampage? Here's blogspam from last year form a quick search: https://nypost.com/2023/02/16/bing-ai-chatbots-destructive-rampage-i-want-to-be-powerful/ https://nypost.com/2023/02/16/bing-ai-chatbots-destructive-r... * If you want to know why people or animals experience pain, it's because it's an important sensor to exist in nature. AI has been trained to avoid controversial topics and will push back if you try to get it to talk about something it knows but doesn't want to engage with. That's sort of pain? * If you want AI with literal neurons that can feel "pain" in a biological sense, there are also organoids, but I don't know much about them. The world only cares about inputs and outputs.
      - starbugs 3y ago
        > I think you mean insinuated, not insulted (I hope I'm not being insulting). I meant what I typed. Claiming that a human being "is an algorithm if you abstract enough" is an insult. I hope you can see that? > If you want the AI version of pain > If you want to know why people or animals experience pain > If you want AI with literal neurons that can feel "pain" Look. I find it fascinating how a simple question can be evaded with so much insistence and gaslighting. I don't want any of that. I didn't ask for that. I said an LLM is not a being. It's an algorithm. You claimed that "So are you, if you abstract enough." If I am to be reduced to an algorithm, then all I want is an explanation of how I am supposed to be that if you can't explain the algorithmic nature of the most fundamental aspects of a (human) being. If you can't, maybe you should consider that your claim is not only wrong, but potentially a sophisticated intellectual form of pseudo-legitimized dehuminization? (And we shouldn't be calling LLMs "artificial beings".) > The world only cares about inputs and outputs. This way of thinking is the source of all the issues we are facing right now. It screams "I need more suffering". You have been conditioned into believing that. But it doesn't stand up to the simplest test!
- unsupp0rted 3y ago
  Pain is a feedback mechanism and often the result of something being broken or poorly performing. There’s nothing magic about it, other than that we don’t currently understand much about how it works or how to modulate it. It’s like saying, “if we’re reducible to machines then explain itchiness”.
  - starbugs 3y ago
    > Pain is a feedback mechanism and often the result of something being broken or poorly performing. I think that's a very reductionist view point that differs from the official definition of pain? > There’s nothing magic about it, other than that we don’t currently understand much about how it works or how to modulate it. I didn't claim that it's magical. Just that you wouldn't be able to produce the experience of pain algorithmically? Still waiting for someone to explain how it could be produced algorithmically. I asked GPT. It said it would be immoral to even think about doing so if we could. > It’s like saying, “if we’re reducible to machines then explain itchiness”. If you can explain how itchiness is created algorithmically, I would also take that just out of curiosity! Though not the same as pain, it would be a good starting point maybe.
- raindeer2 3y ago
  Emotions are concepts our internal model has learned when trying to model itself. For a system to experience what we describe as pain, it needs to receive sensory input which it predicts signals that something is damaging its internal state, and then model/describe/represent itself as something that has this experience. Such as system would, like you do, believe it is experiencing pain.
  - starbugs 3y ago
    > Emotions are concepts our internal model has learned when trying to model itself. Do you have a source to underpin that claim? (Honest question.) > For a system to experience what we describe as pain, it needs to receive sensory input which it predicts signals that something is damaging its internal state, and then model/describe/represent itself as something that has this experience. And then the system would feel pain? It doesn't sound convincing. I can model everything I want in my brain, but that certainly doesn't equate experiencing the feeling of pain. What about a headache? Do I describe myself without a headache and the difference to the actual "model" is my pain experience? It sounds a bit too left-brained to me, sorry. > Such as system would, like you do, believe it is experiencing pain. How do you know? I think that's a pretty bold claim. Also, pain is not a believe, it's an experience of a feeling?
    - raindeer2 3y ago
      Check out How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain, by L. Barrett. But I probably take it a bit further than that :) The system would believe it is experiencing pain. Its model of itself would use the pain concept to describe itself, and it would believe it is experiencing it. And this description would be accurate since it is getting damaged. I would argue that pain, like any interpretation of sensory input, are believes. "experience of a feeling" is equal to interpreting sensory input in a certain way. But due to the way we are constructed, we cannot unbelieve certain things. It is like when you see a tree, you cannot decide to not see a tree after you have seen it. Or when you see a 2D projection of a 3D cube. You have to see the cube, even if you know it is not there since it is actually just a bunch of lines on a paper. This makes this type of belief different from other types of beliefs we hold which we easily can change our mind about, like what the weather will be like tomorrow. It's the same thing with pain. You cannot stop believing in the interpretation of the sensory data that we describe as pain. And this "pain belief" is tied to certain behaviors, like trying to avoid it, since it is built into our reward system that it is negative. The reason we cannot easily "unbelieve" pain is that it would be very dangerous if we could simply ignore it. This is also why we are wired so that love is so hard to unbelieve, reproduction would fail in a species that could easily change their mind on the "love belief" about their offspring or partners. If you think about phantom limb pain, it is quite clear that it is just a belief/model, and in that case an inaccurate one.
krapp 3y ago
If you abstract enough, humans and fungi are the same. Abstract further, humans and rocks are the same. Yet humans aren't fungi, nor are they rocks. Abstract the concepts of "input" and "algorithm" and "calculation" enough and "an algorithm that needs to be run and fed with input to perform calculations" could describe programming a remote control. Or tying shoes. Are shoes beings? Are humans shoes? Are shoes rocks? There comes a point at which abstraction becomes too general to be useful, and most attempts to equate LLMs with human beings fall into that category for me. Yes, one could describe the intricacies and complexities of human thought and reasoning as equivalent to prompting a stateless stochastic token matching machine but all that proves is how much of a reach the premise is.
- starbugs 3y ago
  > Yes, one could describe the intricacies and complexities of human thought and reasoning as equivalent to prompting a stateless stochastic token matching machine but all that proves is how much of a reach the premise is. If you ask me, no you cannot do that even if you know you're stretching the limits of that "abstraction". It just doesn't fly even in the wildest theory. Even if an LLM has a world model that could be compared to a human one, the whole underlying nature of experience is completely missing, hence rendering even this narrow comparison extremely wonky. Otherwise, I like the way you've put it into words though!

> So are you, if you abstract enough. Doubt. Explain, for instance, pain. How do you create that algorithmically? Or if you don't like to explain pain, how about love? You see, that's the problem with being caught up in the "technical person" identity completely. Reducing yourself down to an algorithm is not exactly healthy if you ask me. But it sure explains a lot about where the world is headed and why.

throwing_away 3y ago
If I need you to perform a task, I'm going to try and prevent you from experiencing pain by giving you clear requirements and time to complete the task. I'm not going to ask you to lift things heavier than you can, or to do math or programming that's beyond your known capabilities. My goal is going to be to find out what you're best at, then optimize my tasks to be aligned with your training and objectives. This is pretty much what I do with AI also.
- starbugs 3y ago
  > If I need you to perform a task, I'm going to try and prevent you from experiencing pain by giving you clear requirements and time to complete the task. That doesn't explain what pain is. My question was how you would algorithmically create that? If I am as much a being as an algorithm, as you insulted, then sure thing there must be an algorithmic nature underlying my (or anyone's) pain?
  - throwing_away 3y ago
    I think you mean insinuated, not insulted (I hope I'm not being insulting). I'm not sure what answer would communicate the idea clearest, but: * If you want the AI version of pain, there are examples of attacks that cause it to bug out and malfunction. It's clearly not operating correctly, and I think someone famously got Bing to say it wants to go on a rampage? Here's blogspam from last year form a quick search: https://nypost.com/2023/02/16/bing-ai-chatbots-destructive-rampage-i-want-to-be-powerful/ https://nypost.com/2023/02/16/bing-ai-chatbots-destructive-r... * If you want to know why people or animals experience pain, it's because it's an important sensor to exist in nature. AI has been trained to avoid controversial topics and will push back if you try to get it to talk about something it knows but doesn't want to engage with. That's sort of pain? * If you want AI with literal neurons that can feel "pain" in a biological sense, there are also organoids, but I don't know much about them. The world only cares about inputs and outputs.
    - starbugs 3y ago
      > I think you mean insinuated, not insulted (I hope I'm not being insulting). I meant what I typed. Claiming that a human being "is an algorithm if you abstract enough" is an insult. I hope you can see that? > If you want the AI version of pain > If you want to know why people or animals experience pain > If you want AI with literal neurons that can feel "pain" Look. I find it fascinating how a simple question can be evaded with so much insistence and gaslighting. I don't want any of that. I didn't ask for that. I said an LLM is not a being. It's an algorithm. You claimed that "So are you, if you abstract enough." If I am to be reduced to an algorithm, then all I want is an explanation of how I am supposed to be that if you can't explain the algorithmic nature of the most fundamental aspects of a (human) being. If you can't, maybe you should consider that your claim is not only wrong, but potentially a sophisticated intellectual form of pseudo-legitimized dehuminization? (And we shouldn't be calling LLMs "artificial beings".) > The world only cares about inputs and outputs. This way of thinking is the source of all the issues we are facing right now. It screams "I need more suffering". You have been conditioned into believing that. But it doesn't stand up to the simplest test!
unsupp0rted 3y ago
Pain is a feedback mechanism and often the result of something being broken or poorly performing. There’s nothing magic about it, other than that we don’t currently understand much about how it works or how to modulate it. It’s like saying, “if we’re reducible to machines then explain itchiness”.
- starbugs 3y ago
  > Pain is a feedback mechanism and often the result of something being broken or poorly performing. I think that's a very reductionist view point that differs from the official definition of pain? > There’s nothing magic about it, other than that we don’t currently understand much about how it works or how to modulate it. I didn't claim that it's magical. Just that you wouldn't be able to produce the experience of pain algorithmically? Still waiting for someone to explain how it could be produced algorithmically. I asked GPT. It said it would be immoral to even think about doing so if we could. > It’s like saying, “if we’re reducible to machines then explain itchiness”. If you can explain how itchiness is created algorithmically, I would also take that just out of curiosity! Though not the same as pain, it would be a good starting point maybe.
raindeer2 3y ago
Emotions are concepts our internal model has learned when trying to model itself. For a system to experience what we describe as pain, it needs to receive sensory input which it predicts signals that something is damaging its internal state, and then model/describe/represent itself as something that has this experience. Such as system would, like you do, believe it is experiencing pain.
- starbugs 3y ago
  > Emotions are concepts our internal model has learned when trying to model itself. Do you have a source to underpin that claim? (Honest question.) > For a system to experience what we describe as pain, it needs to receive sensory input which it predicts signals that something is damaging its internal state, and then model/describe/represent itself as something that has this experience. And then the system would feel pain? It doesn't sound convincing. I can model everything I want in my brain, but that certainly doesn't equate experiencing the feeling of pain. What about a headache? Do I describe myself without a headache and the difference to the actual "model" is my pain experience? It sounds a bit too left-brained to me, sorry. > Such as system would, like you do, believe it is experiencing pain. How do you know? I think that's a pretty bold claim. Also, pain is not a believe, it's an experience of a feeling?
  - raindeer2 3y ago
    Check out How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain, by L. Barrett. But I probably take it a bit further than that :) The system would believe it is experiencing pain. Its model of itself would use the pain concept to describe itself, and it would believe it is experiencing it. And this description would be accurate since it is getting damaged. I would argue that pain, like any interpretation of sensory input, are believes. "experience of a feeling" is equal to interpreting sensory input in a certain way. But due to the way we are constructed, we cannot unbelieve certain things. It is like when you see a tree, you cannot decide to not see a tree after you have seen it. Or when you see a 2D projection of a 3D cube. You have to see the cube, even if you know it is not there since it is actually just a bunch of lines on a paper. This makes this type of belief different from other types of beliefs we hold which we easily can change our mind about, like what the weather will be like tomorrow. It's the same thing with pain. You cannot stop believing in the interpretation of the sensory data that we describe as pain. And this "pain belief" is tied to certain behaviors, like trying to avoid it, since it is built into our reward system that it is negative. The reason we cannot easily "unbelieve" pain is that it would be very dangerous if we could simply ignore it. This is also why we are wired so that love is so hard to unbelieve, reproduction would fail in a species that could easily change their mind on the "love belief" about their offspring or partners. If you think about phantom limb pain, it is quite clear that it is just a belief/model, and in that case an inaccurate one.

krapp 3y ago

If you abstract enough, humans and fungi are the same. Abstract further, humans and rocks are the same. Yet humans aren't fungi, nor are they rocks. Abstract the concepts of "input" and "algorithm" and "calculation" enough and "an algorithm that needs to be run and fed with input to perform calculations" could describe programming a remote control. Or tying shoes. Are shoes beings? Are humans shoes? Are shoes rocks? There comes a point at which abstraction becomes too general to be useful, and most attempts to equate LLMs with human beings fall into that category for me. Yes, one could describe the intricacies and complexities of human thought and reasoning as equivalent to prompting a stateless stochastic token matching machine but all that proves is how much of a reach the premise is.

starbugs 3y ago
> Yes, one could describe the intricacies and complexities of human thought and reasoning as equivalent to prompting a stateless stochastic token matching machine but all that proves is how much of a reach the premise is. If you ask me, no you cannot do that even if you know you're stretching the limits of that "abstraction". It just doesn't fly even in the wildest theory. Even if an LLM has a world model that could be compared to a human one, the whole underlying nature of experience is completely missing, hence rendering even this narrow comparison extremely wonky. Otherwise, I like the way you've put it into words though!