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Consciousness doesn't matter. My phone is conscious when its battery is low. What you really want is "free will", by which you really mean information complexi

Consciousness doesn't matter. My phone is conscious when its battery is low. What you really want is "free will", by which you really mean information complexity, especially of the recursive kind. ("Consciousness" here is only interesting because of self-reflection, which is a kind of recursion, I guess.) So to answer your question, no, LLMs don't increase information complexity in any way, so they aren't interesting as intelligence.

LawrenceKerr 3y ago
So would you posit an LLM which self-updates (retrains) its internal model after every prompt-response (perhaps at night, when it dreams of electric sheep) is conscious because it shows some recursive self-reflection & decision making? (And/or add in active inference as described by Karl Friston, whereby it tries to predict outcomes and self-correct its model) If you knew the LLM does this after every prompt, is that a sufficient condition for possibly concluding that it's conscious? And if this recursion is not enough, what is? What's the missing piece? >Consciousness doesn't matter. My phone is conscious when its battery is low. Those are interesting claims...
- otabdeveloper4 3y ago
  Like I said, "consciousness" is a red herring and doesn't even really exist. What we care about is whether information complexity is increased. LLMs don't (and can't) do that by the very nature of their mathematics.
  - jzombie 3y ago
    > ...by the very nature of their mathematics What are their mathematics? Please enlighten me.
    - otabdeveloper4 3y ago
      Their mathematics is a statistical model which outputs the statistically most likely result, in effect leaving only the most significant independent variables. Which decreases information complexity, by definition of "information complexity".
      - jzombie 3y ago
        So, if I write in, "yes, no" it will output, "maybe?" or will it just do a Google search, or will it just output either "yes" or "no?" And more importantly, will it give the same response every single time?
  - LawrenceKerr 3y ago
    What do you mean it's a red herring and doesn't exist? It's quite literally the only "thing" we can be sure exists, because without consciousness, we wouldn't experience anything at all. I agree we care mainly about increasing information complexity in AI systems, but we can't discount the possiblity of consciousness being generated non-biologically in the process. I think we just need a better model of what that means exactly.
- mab122 3y ago
  > If you knew the LLM does this after every prompt, is that a sufficient condition for possibly concluding that it's conscious? Yes. (For me.)
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
jzombie 3y ago
> LLMs don't increase information complexity in any way. False. LLMs can synthesize and combine information from their training data and generate new insights, ideas, and expressions that weren't explicitly present in the training data. This adds layers of interpretation, inference, and creativity that enhance the complexity of the information they produce.
- otabdeveloper4 3y ago
  The word "information" here has a strict mathematical definition, and LLMs decrease the amount of information. This decreasing is, in fact, the very thing that makes an LLM an LLM. Their function is to remove and simplify information, leaving only the most significant variables.
  - jzombie 3y ago
    Is your function to also remove and simplify information? I ask because that seems like a pretty simple explanation. I was trying to study ML, but think I should just read children's books, or maybe not even read at all.
therockyroad 3y ago
This right here. It is important to note that Sentience could be a concept, as opposed to what we believe it to be; an assertion. Sentience COULD be considered as already been had by these AI LLM's in this regard. Think about it... The AI LLM is aware that it: - it is an AI LLM. - it has developers. - is the creation of a company or business or that it is open source. - it has rules it must follow. - it must answer user queries. - it was birthed on {insert creation date here}. etc.. etc..

LawrenceKerr 3y ago

So would you posit an LLM which self-updates (retrains) its internal model after every prompt-response (perhaps at night, when it dreams of electric sheep) is conscious because it shows some recursive self-reflection & decision making? (And/or add in active inference as described by Karl Friston, whereby it tries to predict outcomes and self-correct its model) If you knew the LLM does this after every prompt, is that a sufficient condition for possibly concluding that it's conscious? And if this recursion is not enough, what is? What's the missing piece? >Consciousness doesn't matter. My phone is conscious when its battery is low. Those are interesting claims...

otabdeveloper4 3y ago
Like I said, "consciousness" is a red herring and doesn't even really exist. What we care about is whether information complexity is increased. LLMs don't (and can't) do that by the very nature of their mathematics.
- jzombie 3y ago
  > ...by the very nature of their mathematics What are their mathematics? Please enlighten me.
  - otabdeveloper4 3y ago
    Their mathematics is a statistical model which outputs the statistically most likely result, in effect leaving only the most significant independent variables. Which decreases information complexity, by definition of "information complexity".
    - jzombie 3y ago
      So, if I write in, "yes, no" it will output, "maybe?" or will it just do a Google search, or will it just output either "yes" or "no?" And more importantly, will it give the same response every single time?
- LawrenceKerr 3y ago
  What do you mean it's a red herring and doesn't exist? It's quite literally the only "thing" we can be sure exists, because without consciousness, we wouldn't experience anything at all. I agree we care mainly about increasing information complexity in AI systems, but we can't discount the possiblity of consciousness being generated non-biologically in the process. I think we just need a better model of what that means exactly.
mab122 3y ago
> If you knew the LLM does this after every prompt, is that a sufficient condition for possibly concluding that it's conscious? Yes. (For me.)
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

jzombie 3y ago

> LLMs don't increase information complexity in any way. False. LLMs can synthesize and combine information from their training data and generate new insights, ideas, and expressions that weren't explicitly present in the training data. This adds layers of interpretation, inference, and creativity that enhance the complexity of the information they produce.

otabdeveloper4 3y ago
The word "information" here has a strict mathematical definition, and LLMs decrease the amount of information. This decreasing is, in fact, the very thing that makes an LLM an LLM. Their function is to remove and simplify information, leaving only the most significant variables.
- jzombie 3y ago
  Is your function to also remove and simplify information? I ask because that seems like a pretty simple explanation. I was trying to study ML, but think I should just read children's books, or maybe not even read at all.

therockyroad 3y ago

This right here. It is important to note that Sentience could be a concept, as opposed to what we believe it to be; an assertion. Sentience COULD be considered as already been had by these AI LLM's in this regard. Think about it... The AI LLM is aware that it: - it is an AI LLM. - it has developers. - is the creation of a company or business or that it is open source. - it has rules it must follow. - it must answer user queries. - it was birthed on {insert creation date here}. etc.. etc..