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>uncomfortable, despite knowing it's just math and whatever behind the scenes If the "just math behind the scenes" argument is decisive, then how do we resist
by hollerith 2y ago
>uncomfortable, despite knowing it's just math and whatever behind the scenes
If the "just math behind the scenes" argument is decisive, then how do we resist the argument that a person is just atoms (or the wavefunction if you want to get more sophisticated) behind the scenes, so you can ignore any apparent cruelty done to them, too?
- ziddoap 2y agoI think whether those atoms are arranged into something sentient or not is an important distinction. No, I can't define a clean line where that sentience occurs. Hence my being uncomfortable.
- goatlover 2y agoIf you ignore biology and psychology. That's the problem with this sort of reductionism. It's the higher level emergent stuff that makes a difference. Anyway, fields are more fundamental than atoms.
- hackinthebochs 2y ago>It's the higher level emergent stuff that makes a difference. Those who dismiss the idea that LLMs could be sentient because its "just math" or whatever are implicitly assuming there is nothing emergent going on within fully trained networks that might be similar to psychology to warrant ascription of mental terms. The point is that dismissing LLM sentient because of its most basic substrate is equivalent to dismissing human sentience because we're made of atoms.