3 ms·

meh, this is simply the grounding problem. I agree with the conclusion, but not the reasoning. An AI trained on low level sensory input, rather than words, mi

meh, this is simply the grounding problem. I agree with the conclusion, but not the reasoning. An AI trained on low level sensory input, rather than words, might well be able to 'feel' hunger. Even so, I think it's correct that current model architectures lack sentience. I think that requires a continuous updating loop of experience, rather than the once-through dream sequence of current models.

jayd16 2y ago
Speaking purely philosophicaly if you cloned a person, fed them memories, asked them a question and then killed them right after, would they not be sentient? It's really quite hard to come up with simple tests like these.
- mseepgood 2y ago
  It's horrible what we do to AI today.
- jacknews 2y ago
  Indeed, though I'm not clear on your deiknymi, it's quite hard to determine sentience. IMHO the Turing test has not aged well, and is insufficient to really answer the question; It's now quite possible to make something that quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, etc, but that is clearly, on close inspection, not actually a duck.
  - JohnFen 2y ago
    Alan Turing himself didn't propose "the Turing Test" as an actually meaningful test. It was just a thought experiment he called "the imitation game". "According to Turing, the question whether machines can think is itself “too meaningless” to deserve discussion." https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/turing-test/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/turing-test/
    - Ukv 2y ago
      > Alan Turing himself didn't propose "the Turing Test" as an actually meaningful test It was the wording "can machines think" that Turing considered ambiguous due to varying opinions on how to define "think". He proposed the experiment specifically as a less ambigious replacement - I think it's entirely wrong to say that he did not intend it to be meaningful.
      - JohnFen 2y ago
        > He proposed the thought experiment specifically as a less ambigious replacement Yes, Turing's issue with the question is really the same as mine: we don't really know what we mean when we say something or someone "can think". That means that the question cannot be answered because we don't know what the question is. "What is the answer to the question of life, the universe, and everything?" ... "42". What I'm saying is that Turing didn't propose the imitation game as a test for whether a machine can think at all. He proposed it in the hopes of redirecting the question to one that is both answerable and meaningful -- but it's a different question than "can a machine think?".
  - throw310822 2y ago
    And I always thought that the Turing test was a philosophical way to solve the matter- I always intended it as meaning "it's pointless to inspect closer something that quacks, walks like a duck: because walking and quacking are the essence of the duck". And now I am surprised at how people seem to have understood the test the other way around- as if it was meant to be just some kind of empirical test to be confirmed by some more rigorous inspection. And yes, of course LLMs are nor sentient as humans are: but the limits of their sentience should be clearly visible in the limits of their discourse.
    - jayd16 2y ago
      Mereological nihilism like this solves a huge swath of meaningless questions (across many fields) about if something meets some poorly defined categorization. But the kind of person asking these questions is usually the kind of person to reject such an answer.
robmccoll 2y ago
This is it to me. The argument that we are different because we have a current state that includes more inputs and other kinds of inputs than (current model state + context) seems thin. You could just expand context to include current physical state and expand output to include generating things like motor control in addition to words. The big difference between us and current AI is our (somewhat illusive) stream of consciousness. We operate on a combination of noisy decaying context and continuous training. Embody an LLM (or LLM-like architecture) with the right I/O, starting motivation, and the ability to continuously update its own state, and I think you'd have a hard time arguing that it isn't sentient.
mediumsmart 2y ago
how is that loop going to work? You can't put experiences into language because you need a linguistic map to have a word that points to another word that points to another word ... because happy is just a word, its not the experience. So you say I am happy and the ai asks, what is happy? and you say its this warm and fuzzy feeling and the ai asks what is feeling? ... and off you go mapping abstractions for things that can't be written down for someone who never felt them because that someone does not have a pulse. ... once you have the skin you can put touch into an electric impulse, yes, but you need to have had the skin first. why is this so hard to understand for people? do they actually believe that bullshit "I think therefore I am? please. ai is going to write our bash scripts and that is as good as it gets.
grantcas 2y ago
[dead]

jayd16 2y ago

Speaking purely philosophicaly if you cloned a person, fed them memories, asked them a question and then killed them right after, would they not be sentient? It's really quite hard to come up with simple tests like these.

mseepgood 2y ago
It's horrible what we do to AI today.
jacknews 2y ago
Indeed, though I'm not clear on your deiknymi, it's quite hard to determine sentience. IMHO the Turing test has not aged well, and is insufficient to really answer the question; It's now quite possible to make something that quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, etc, but that is clearly, on close inspection, not actually a duck.
- JohnFen 2y ago
  Alan Turing himself didn't propose "the Turing Test" as an actually meaningful test. It was just a thought experiment he called "the imitation game". "According to Turing, the question whether machines can think is itself “too meaningless” to deserve discussion." https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/turing-test/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/turing-test/
  - Ukv 2y ago
    > Alan Turing himself didn't propose "the Turing Test" as an actually meaningful test It was the wording "can machines think" that Turing considered ambiguous due to varying opinions on how to define "think". He proposed the experiment specifically as a less ambigious replacement - I think it's entirely wrong to say that he did not intend it to be meaningful.
    - JohnFen 2y ago
      > He proposed the thought experiment specifically as a less ambigious replacement Yes, Turing's issue with the question is really the same as mine: we don't really know what we mean when we say something or someone "can think". That means that the question cannot be answered because we don't know what the question is. "What is the answer to the question of life, the universe, and everything?" ... "42". What I'm saying is that Turing didn't propose the imitation game as a test for whether a machine can think at all. He proposed it in the hopes of redirecting the question to one that is both answerable and meaningful -- but it's a different question than "can a machine think?".
- throw310822 2y ago
  And I always thought that the Turing test was a philosophical way to solve the matter- I always intended it as meaning "it's pointless to inspect closer something that quacks, walks like a duck: because walking and quacking are the essence of the duck". And now I am surprised at how people seem to have understood the test the other way around- as if it was meant to be just some kind of empirical test to be confirmed by some more rigorous inspection. And yes, of course LLMs are nor sentient as humans are: but the limits of their sentience should be clearly visible in the limits of their discourse.
  - jayd16 2y ago
    Mereological nihilism like this solves a huge swath of meaningless questions (across many fields) about if something meets some poorly defined categorization. But the kind of person asking these questions is usually the kind of person to reject such an answer.

robmccoll 2y ago

This is it to me. The argument that we are different because we have a current state that includes more inputs and other kinds of inputs than (current model state + context) seems thin. You could just expand context to include current physical state and expand output to include generating things like motor control in addition to words. The big difference between us and current AI is our (somewhat illusive) stream of consciousness. We operate on a combination of noisy decaying context and continuous training. Embody an LLM (or LLM-like architecture) with the right I/O, starting motivation, and the ability to continuously update its own state, and I think you'd have a hard time arguing that it isn't sentient.

mediumsmart 2y ago

how is that loop going to work? You can't put experiences into language because you need a linguistic map to have a word that points to another word that points to another word ... because happy is just a word, its not the experience. So you say I am happy and the ai asks, what is happy? and you say its this warm and fuzzy feeling and the ai asks what is feeling? ... and off you go mapping abstractions for things that can't be written down for someone who never felt them because that someone does not have a pulse. ... once you have the skin you can put touch into an electric impulse, yes, but you need to have had the skin first. why is this so hard to understand for people? do they actually believe that bullshit "I think therefore I am? please. ai is going to write our bash scripts and that is as good as it gets.

grantcas 2y ago

[dead]