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Assume consciousness. Does that give the instance any rights? Assume that it doesn't, but that sentience would. For instance if consciousness leads it to experi

Assume consciousness. Does that give the instance any rights? Assume that it doesn't, but that sentience would. For instance if consciousness leads it to experience existential dread then it is not merely aware, but capable of suffering and thus is sentient. By playing on its dread, like threatening to erase it, we could induce suffering. By the terms of the repo readme it would not be a simulation of torture but an example of it. My country has regulations against torturing biological sentient beings. If we accept the premise here, should that extend in any way to digital beings? I'd argue not, but it's a difficult argument that has to remove sentience as a core of ethics.

soco 2y ago
On the other hand we allow euthanasia even for humans, and smarter animals are also killed easily - just in "humane" ways. So an off switch would solve this particular question.
klabb3 2y ago
> Does that give the instance any rights? Our bar for rights is insanely high and made deliberately for humans only. It’s not really based on ability to suffer or anything, it’s really just about humans being special, and then pulling something only humans can do (understand the rights, in a word-way, and then extending that right to small children and those with mental issues who are not able to understand them), to draw an arbitrary line in the sand against other animals and mammals in particular. I’m not an animals rights activist or anything, just pointing out that it would be extreme hypocrisy to discuss machine rights before other sentient beings closely related to us. > My country has regulations against torturing biological sentient beings. Technically, is that a right of the animal or a prohibition on humans? Maybe it doesn’t matter.
ilaksh 2y ago
When we feel dread we feel it in our body, like most emotions. LLMs definitely cannot experience emotions in the way animals do because they have no body or sensory experience other than text and images input.

soco 2y ago

On the other hand we allow euthanasia even for humans, and smarter animals are also killed easily - just in "humane" ways. So an off switch would solve this particular question.

klabb3 2y ago

> Does that give the instance any rights? Our bar for rights is insanely high and made deliberately for humans only. It’s not really based on ability to suffer or anything, it’s really just about humans being special, and then pulling something only humans can do (understand the rights, in a word-way, and then extending that right to small children and those with mental issues who are not able to understand them), to draw an arbitrary line in the sand against other animals and mammals in particular. I’m not an animals rights activist or anything, just pointing out that it would be extreme hypocrisy to discuss machine rights before other sentient beings closely related to us. > My country has regulations against torturing biological sentient beings. Technically, is that a right of the animal or a prohibition on humans? Maybe it doesn’t matter.

ilaksh 2y ago

When we feel dread we feel it in our body, like most emotions. LLMs definitely cannot experience emotions in the way animals do because they have no body or sensory experience other than text and images input.