4 ms·

What is this obsession with making computers human-like? We can put those machine to better uses than forgetting, having biases, making subtle or gross mistake

What is this obsession with making computers human-like? We can put those machine to better uses than forgetting, having biases, making subtle or gross mistakes (hello, ChatGPT) like we do. The AI that some apparently consider top-notch today is only good at powering NPCs in video games. The more serious the use-case, the more harmful it becomes. Moreover, achieving artificial consciousness is only good at fueling endless debates about whether it fakes it perfectly or it is the real thing.

anon-3988 2y ago
Agreed. The calculator is not human-like, let's figure out how to humanize this! Intelligence comes in a myriad of ways. Mimicking humans will just produce a human, what's the point? I am not even sure a super intelligent "human" is even a good thing. The smartass will probably spend their intelligence betting the stock market.
- nprateem 2y ago
  The point is actual cognition. Without consciousness there can be no understanding which stunts the ability of AI and makes AGI impossible.
  - astrobe_ 2y ago
    That doesn't prove anything, but from an etymology perspective both "conscious" and "cognition" mean "know together". One can easily spot the common "co-" prefix which carries the "together" part, but the main roots derive from different verbs which have respectively the alternative meanings of "distinguish, dissect, split" and "recognize", respectively. As often, the definition of "recognize" is definitely circular so it seems that it is the "real root" for "knowledge", while "conscious" seems to have an "analysis" flavor. IMO, "understanding" is synonym to intelligence, and the ability to analyze is one keep part of it (another is the ability to recombine). So it seems that we can agree that "without consciousness there can be no understanding", although we moved away a bit from the common meaning of "conscious".
SJC_Hacker 2y ago
> What is this obsession with making computers human-like? Replacement of human labor on the cheap, the most capital intensive part of many businesses. Alternatively as a productivity multiplier of human labor.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- __loam 2y ago
  "Cheap" OpenAI loves to talk revenue but I'd like to hear more about their unit economics.
  - SJC_Hacker 2y ago
    Writers of all types. Not a complete replacement but if you can get away with half as many + AI, that’s substantial savings.
    - __loam 2y ago
      I'm skeptical that AI can actually replace writers like ai people seem to think it can. In marketing, I don't think the actual writing is really that much of the cost compared to paying Google and meta and serve the ad, unless you're doing something crazy like fully personalized ads, which I'm not convinced are actually better considering for creepy they are. For writing a novel, I've not heard of any books that are mostly written by AI that people actually want to read and most authors I've seen speak about it seem to hate the technology. And again, the unit economics and market make me think it makes more sense to invest in making a better novel than trying to pump out ai garbage in a winner take all situation. I don't really get it for technical documentation either, where the thing you're really trying to get across is human understanding. The point is not to just pump out garbage, it's too actually understand something than translate that understanding into words. I'm not convinced LLMs can do that right now. The one area I've seen it work great for in meeting transcripts and summaries, but that's not a convincing use case if you're losing money every time a user uses the service.
deepfriedchokes 2y ago
I think humanity is afraid of being alone.
- Der_Einzige 2y ago
  Damn straight. If space travel is so bloody hard, I'll just make the damn aliens myself. Related, but LLMs are the ultimate example of humans following the tradition of the Timaeus and imitating the demiurgos - the divine crafter, as the gods did when they crafted the demigods, as the demigods did when they crafted us, and as we do when we craft machine intelligence. Neo-platonism engaged with this idea a long time ago.
PeterisP 2y ago
I think there's practical value to knowing what would make a very complex AI system conscious in order to explicitly and intentionally avoid it - we want to create powerful artificial systems to do all the tasks that humans don't want to do, but there's no reason for those systems to have the capability to experience suffering by being 'enslaved' to do all these tasks; arguably consciousness isn't necessary nor useful for any of these tasks[1], and unless it turns out to be an unalienable side-effect of some critical mass of capability, we'd rather not have these systems be conscious. [1] I can imagine a few roles with relationship-building where expressing consciousness could be useful, but IMHO for all of them faking consciousness would be far preferable than actually having it.
- __loam 2y ago
  We're kind of failing by making AI that automates the things humans want to do.
- astrobe_ 2y ago
  Interesting take. This reminds me of Blade Runner, which, I read, takes place in 2019.
EasyMark 2y ago
I'm kind of worried about virtual assistants, teachers, etc ruining a generation of children who think they are "real people" as much as anything else I've heard about AI. Adults can (usually) discern reality much more easily than children. Some of the assistants are getting these very "emotional" sounding voices and it's freakish to me. I don't need Siri to sound like a doting girlfriend, I just need it to play a song, fetch some information, pull up my schedule, etc.
int_19h 2y ago
We need smarter automation for Star Trek communism utopia to be feasible. Having biases or making subtle mistakes is not really desirable, it's just that we haven't figured out how to have something that can reason without those things.
- CatWChainsaw 2y ago
  We need a stronger focus on ethics and being decent to each other.
grantcas 2y ago
[dead]

anon-3988 2y ago

Agreed. The calculator is not human-like, let's figure out how to humanize this! Intelligence comes in a myriad of ways. Mimicking humans will just produce a human, what's the point? I am not even sure a super intelligent "human" is even a good thing. The smartass will probably spend their intelligence betting the stock market.

nprateem 2y ago
The point is actual cognition. Without consciousness there can be no understanding which stunts the ability of AI and makes AGI impossible.
- astrobe_ 2y ago
  That doesn't prove anything, but from an etymology perspective both "conscious" and "cognition" mean "know together". One can easily spot the common "co-" prefix which carries the "together" part, but the main roots derive from different verbs which have respectively the alternative meanings of "distinguish, dissect, split" and "recognize", respectively. As often, the definition of "recognize" is definitely circular so it seems that it is the "real root" for "knowledge", while "conscious" seems to have an "analysis" flavor. IMO, "understanding" is synonym to intelligence, and the ability to analyze is one keep part of it (another is the ability to recombine). So it seems that we can agree that "without consciousness there can be no understanding", although we moved away a bit from the common meaning of "conscious".

SJC_Hacker 2y ago

> What is this obsession with making computers human-like? Replacement of human labor on the cheap, the most capital intensive part of many businesses. Alternatively as a productivity multiplier of human labor.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
__loam 2y ago
"Cheap" OpenAI loves to talk revenue but I'd like to hear more about their unit economics.
- SJC_Hacker 2y ago
  Writers of all types. Not a complete replacement but if you can get away with half as many + AI, that’s substantial savings.
  - __loam 2y ago
    I'm skeptical that AI can actually replace writers like ai people seem to think it can. In marketing, I don't think the actual writing is really that much of the cost compared to paying Google and meta and serve the ad, unless you're doing something crazy like fully personalized ads, which I'm not convinced are actually better considering for creepy they are. For writing a novel, I've not heard of any books that are mostly written by AI that people actually want to read and most authors I've seen speak about it seem to hate the technology. And again, the unit economics and market make me think it makes more sense to invest in making a better novel than trying to pump out ai garbage in a winner take all situation. I don't really get it for technical documentation either, where the thing you're really trying to get across is human understanding. The point is not to just pump out garbage, it's too actually understand something than translate that understanding into words. I'm not convinced LLMs can do that right now. The one area I've seen it work great for in meeting transcripts and summaries, but that's not a convincing use case if you're losing money every time a user uses the service.

deepfriedchokes 2y ago

I think humanity is afraid of being alone.

Der_Einzige 2y ago
Damn straight. If space travel is so bloody hard, I'll just make the damn aliens myself. Related, but LLMs are the ultimate example of humans following the tradition of the Timaeus and imitating the demiurgos - the divine crafter, as the gods did when they crafted the demigods, as the demigods did when they crafted us, and as we do when we craft machine intelligence. Neo-platonism engaged with this idea a long time ago.

PeterisP 2y ago

I think there's practical value to knowing what would make a very complex AI system conscious in order to explicitly and intentionally avoid it - we want to create powerful artificial systems to do all the tasks that humans don't want to do, but there's no reason for those systems to have the capability to experience suffering by being 'enslaved' to do all these tasks; arguably consciousness isn't necessary nor useful for any of these tasks[1], and unless it turns out to be an unalienable side-effect of some critical mass of capability, we'd rather not have these systems be conscious. [1] I can imagine a few roles with relationship-building where expressing consciousness could be useful, but IMHO for all of them faking consciousness would be far preferable than actually having it.

__loam 2y ago
We're kind of failing by making AI that automates the things humans want to do.
astrobe_ 2y ago
Interesting take. This reminds me of Blade Runner, which, I read, takes place in 2019.

EasyMark 2y ago

I'm kind of worried about virtual assistants, teachers, etc ruining a generation of children who think they are "real people" as much as anything else I've heard about AI. Adults can (usually) discern reality much more easily than children. Some of the assistants are getting these very "emotional" sounding voices and it's freakish to me. I don't need Siri to sound like a doting girlfriend, I just need it to play a song, fetch some information, pull up my schedule, etc.

int_19h 2y ago

We need smarter automation for Star Trek communism utopia to be feasible. Having biases or making subtle mistakes is not really desirable, it's just that we haven't figured out how to have something that can reason without those things.

CatWChainsaw 2y ago
We need a stronger focus on ethics and being decent to each other.

grantcas 2y ago

[dead]