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>>It does have permanent memory, that's what training creates. This is begging the question. By calling the output of the training "memory" you've proven it ha

>>It does have permanent memory, that's what training creates. This is begging the question. By calling the output of the training "memory" you've proven it has "memory." I hereby rebut by calling the output of the training "parameters" thereby proving it has no "memory" only "parameters." >> Whether it has desires, pain or sense of self is completely unknown, unless of course you have some mechanistic model You probably don't go around saying it's unknown whether your desk chair has "desire, pain or sense of self". The fact tech enthusiasts go around rhetorically demanding "mechanistic models" to rebut their gushing claims about LLMs while not demanding "mechanistic models" while making gushing claims about desk chairs shows a lack of "mechanistic models" is not really the basis of their gushing claims.

naasking 3y ago
> I hereby rebut by calling the output of the training "parameters" thereby proving it has no "memory" only "parameters." Since some types of parameters have the properties we ascribe to memory, then some types of parameters are memory. > You probably don't go around saying it's unknown whether your desk chair has "desire, pain or sense of self" I also don't go around having intelligent conversations with chairs. > The fact tech enthusiasts go around rhetorically demanding "mechanistic models" to rebut their gushing claims about LLMs while not demanding "mechanistic models" while making gushing claims about desk chairs shows a lack of "mechanistic models" is not really the basis of their gushing claims. I made no such claims, people like yourself who are so eager to dismiss the possibility that LLMs are intelligent or sentient are the ones making strong claims without justification. Edit: the fact that you are drawing an absurd equivalence between inert chairs and a system capable of intelligent conversation shows you haven't given this topic any serious thought. I suggest you do that and come back with a better analogy if you want to have a serious conversation.
- ForHackernews 3y ago
  > I also don't go around having intelligent conversations with chairs. It seems like your functional theory of consciousness is "thing that produces plausible English output," which is, I might gently suggest, a bit flawed. Why is ChatGPT "conscious" for you but DALL-E is not? They're both big honking pattern-matching generators trained on lots of data. Why isn't ELIZA conscious, according to your theory? (or is it?)
  - naasking 3y ago
    > It seems like your functional theory of consciousness is "thing that produces plausible English output," which is, I might gently suggest, a bit flawed. My functional theory of consciousness is that it's not at all implausible that any system capable of conversing intelligently might be conscious, which is perfectly reasonable. > Why is ChatGPT "conscious" for you but DALL-E is not? I never claimed DALL-E was not conscious. It very well could be as well, just in a different way than ChatGPT.
    - ForHackernews 3y ago
      This is like the argument from magic, no? For you, any sufficiently complex system that responds to language might be conscious? Are babies less conscious than ChatGPT to you?
- staticman2 3y ago
  > I also don't go around having intelligent conversations with chairs. Where's your mechanistic model showing consciousness is linked to "intelligent conversations." >the fact that you are drawing an absurd equivalence between inert chairs and a system capable of intelligent conversation shows you haven't given this topic any serious thought. Whether a desk chair has desires, pain or sense of self is completely unknown, unless of course you have some mechanistic model of these phenomena such that we can see its presence in the human brain and see that desk chairs do not have a comparable process. People like yourself who are so eager to dismiss the possibility that desk chairs are intelligent or sentient are the ones making strong claims without justification.
  - naasking 3y ago
    Your parroted argument is just proving my point: we can't make definitive claims that chairs aren't conscious (see panspsychism), all we have are degrees of plausibility we evaluate in our ignorance. But under the materialistic assumptions of science, features such as intelligence indicate a degree of complex information processing that is a hallmark of systems that we know are conscious (like humans), and the absence of such sophistication in chairs reduces the plausibility of consciousness significantly. Denying consciousness exists in systems that also feature sophisticated information processing and that reproduce human capabilities is an argument from ignorance fallacy, unless of course you have additional evidence you haven't presented. Which is not to say that they are conscious either, but I never made such a claim.
    - staticman2 3y ago
      > all we have are degrees of plausibility we evaluate in our ignorance Okay. >argument from ignorance fallacy, You just conceded we are both ignorant, but I'm the only one making the argument of ignorance fallacy? Double standard? > Which is not to say that they are conscious either, but I never made such a claim. Perhaps your objection is the way I phrased my comment. I should have said "ChatGPT being conscious is roughly as plausible as a "hello world" program being conscious. Case in point these model responds much like a "Hello world" program when asked if they are conscious. Claude has been finetuned to say 'I don't know if I'm conscious' Gemini and ChatGPT have been finetuned to say they are not, these models are complex in some ways and not very complex in other ways, they show no sophistication or complexity in ways we would associate with consciousness." Like, the trick is to distance yourself from your own opinion so as not to be accused of "arguing from ignorance" right? Talk about plausibility instead of directly making claims? But I don't remember making claims either, to be honest, so I'm not sure how I'm the only one making the "argument from ignorance fallacy" allegedly?

naasking 3y ago

> I hereby rebut by calling the output of the training "parameters" thereby proving it has no "memory" only "parameters." Since some types of parameters have the properties we ascribe to memory, then some types of parameters are memory. > You probably don't go around saying it's unknown whether your desk chair has "desire, pain or sense of self" I also don't go around having intelligent conversations with chairs. > The fact tech enthusiasts go around rhetorically demanding "mechanistic models" to rebut their gushing claims about LLMs while not demanding "mechanistic models" while making gushing claims about desk chairs shows a lack of "mechanistic models" is not really the basis of their gushing claims. I made no such claims, people like yourself who are so eager to dismiss the possibility that LLMs are intelligent or sentient are the ones making strong claims without justification. Edit: the fact that you are drawing an absurd equivalence between inert chairs and a system capable of intelligent conversation shows you haven't given this topic any serious thought. I suggest you do that and come back with a better analogy if you want to have a serious conversation.

ForHackernews 3y ago
> I also don't go around having intelligent conversations with chairs. It seems like your functional theory of consciousness is "thing that produces plausible English output," which is, I might gently suggest, a bit flawed. Why is ChatGPT "conscious" for you but DALL-E is not? They're both big honking pattern-matching generators trained on lots of data. Why isn't ELIZA conscious, according to your theory? (or is it?)
- naasking 3y ago
  > It seems like your functional theory of consciousness is "thing that produces plausible English output," which is, I might gently suggest, a bit flawed. My functional theory of consciousness is that it's not at all implausible that any system capable of conversing intelligently might be conscious, which is perfectly reasonable. > Why is ChatGPT "conscious" for you but DALL-E is not? I never claimed DALL-E was not conscious. It very well could be as well, just in a different way than ChatGPT.
  - ForHackernews 3y ago
    This is like the argument from magic, no? For you, any sufficiently complex system that responds to language might be conscious? Are babies less conscious than ChatGPT to you?
staticman2 3y ago
> I also don't go around having intelligent conversations with chairs. Where's your mechanistic model showing consciousness is linked to "intelligent conversations." >the fact that you are drawing an absurd equivalence between inert chairs and a system capable of intelligent conversation shows you haven't given this topic any serious thought. Whether a desk chair has desires, pain or sense of self is completely unknown, unless of course you have some mechanistic model of these phenomena such that we can see its presence in the human brain and see that desk chairs do not have a comparable process. People like yourself who are so eager to dismiss the possibility that desk chairs are intelligent or sentient are the ones making strong claims without justification.
- naasking 3y ago
  Your parroted argument is just proving my point: we can't make definitive claims that chairs aren't conscious (see panspsychism), all we have are degrees of plausibility we evaluate in our ignorance. But under the materialistic assumptions of science, features such as intelligence indicate a degree of complex information processing that is a hallmark of systems that we know are conscious (like humans), and the absence of such sophistication in chairs reduces the plausibility of consciousness significantly. Denying consciousness exists in systems that also feature sophisticated information processing and that reproduce human capabilities is an argument from ignorance fallacy, unless of course you have additional evidence you haven't presented. Which is not to say that they are conscious either, but I never made such a claim.
  - staticman2 3y ago
    > all we have are degrees of plausibility we evaluate in our ignorance Okay. >argument from ignorance fallacy, You just conceded we are both ignorant, but I'm the only one making the argument of ignorance fallacy? Double standard? > Which is not to say that they are conscious either, but I never made such a claim. Perhaps your objection is the way I phrased my comment. I should have said "ChatGPT being conscious is roughly as plausible as a "hello world" program being conscious. Case in point these model responds much like a "Hello world" program when asked if they are conscious. Claude has been finetuned to say 'I don't know if I'm conscious' Gemini and ChatGPT have been finetuned to say they are not, these models are complex in some ways and not very complex in other ways, they show no sophistication or complexity in ways we would associate with consciousness." Like, the trick is to distance yourself from your own opinion so as not to be accused of "arguing from ignorance" right? Talk about plausibility instead of directly making claims? But I don't remember making claims either, to be honest, so I'm not sure how I'm the only one making the "argument from ignorance fallacy" allegedly?