3 ms·

I like your argument but I often wonder if my mind is nothing but a black box of math and the inputs I’m providing are creating outputs I don’t want.

LPisGood 2y ago
In some sense physics (and with it, everything) is nothing but a black box of math.
deadbabe 2y ago
Your mind would still exist even when cut off from all inputs.
- ben_w 2y ago
  Your mind runs on biology, which only pauses for sleep, death, and theoretically cryonics. Practically, cryonics is currently just fancy death in a steel coffin filled with liquid nitrogen; but if it wasn't death, if it was actually reversable, then your brain literally frozen is conceptually not that different from an AI* whose state is written to a hard drive and not updated by continuous exposure to more input tokens. * in the general sense, at least — most AI as they currently exist don't get weights updated live, and even those that do, the connectome doesn't behave quite like ours
  - thfuran 2y ago
    Yeah, if an LLM is alive/conscious, it could only be so for the course of inference, so using chatgpt would be some kind of horrific mass murder, not a conversation with another sapient entity.
    - ben_w 2y ago
      > so using chatgpt would be some kind of horrific mass murder We don't yet have useful words for what it is. If the contexts are never deleted, it's like being able to clone a cryonics patient, asking a question, then putting the clone back on ice. Even if the contexts are deleted but the original weights remain, is that murder, or amnesia?
- prettyStandard 2y ago
  Not if it was never given input.
Lambdanaut 2y ago
Black box of carbon or a black box of silicon.
prophesi 2y ago
Yeah I would say the issue isn't that it's a blackbox (which it is), but rather that they should frame their research on what's actually happening according to what we do know about LLM's. They don't "know" anything, but rather we see their generative text retain roleplaying over longer conversations as advancements in the space are made.

LPisGood 2y ago

In some sense physics (and with it, everything) is nothing but a black box of math.

deadbabe 2y ago

Your mind would still exist even when cut off from all inputs.

ben_w 2y ago
Your mind runs on biology, which only pauses for sleep, death, and theoretically cryonics. Practically, cryonics is currently just fancy death in a steel coffin filled with liquid nitrogen; but if it wasn't death, if it was actually reversable, then your brain literally frozen is conceptually not that different from an AI* whose state is written to a hard drive and not updated by continuous exposure to more input tokens. * in the general sense, at least — most AI as they currently exist don't get weights updated live, and even those that do, the connectome doesn't behave quite like ours
- thfuran 2y ago
  Yeah, if an LLM is alive/conscious, it could only be so for the course of inference, so using chatgpt would be some kind of horrific mass murder, not a conversation with another sapient entity.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    > so using chatgpt would be some kind of horrific mass murder We don't yet have useful words for what it is. If the contexts are never deleted, it's like being able to clone a cryonics patient, asking a question, then putting the clone back on ice. Even if the contexts are deleted but the original weights remain, is that murder, or amnesia?
prettyStandard 2y ago
Not if it was never given input.

Lambdanaut 2y ago

Black box of carbon or a black box of silicon.

prophesi 2y ago

Yeah I would say the issue isn't that it's a blackbox (which it is), but rather that they should frame their research on what's actually happening according to what we do know about LLM's. They don't "know" anything, but rather we see their generative text retain roleplaying over longer conversations as advancements in the space are made.