6 ms·

Not only that. For a current human time just "stops" when taking a nap. That very much prevents it from being proactive: you can't tell a sleeping human to remi

Not only that. For a current human time just "stops" when taking a nap. That very much prevents it from being proactive: you can't tell a sleeping human to remind you of something in 5 minutes without an external alarm. I don't think it is possible for a human to achieve sentience without this either.

carra 1y ago
Not a very good analogy. Humans already have a continuous stream of thought during the day between any tasks or when we are "doing nothing". And even when asleep the mind doesn't really stop. The brain stays active: it reorganizes thoughts and dreams.
- danlitt 1y ago
  Humans do not have a continuous stream of thought when they are asleep, even if their brain is still doing things. Your original example (the LLM can't take actions between problems) is literally the same as the fact that the human can't take actions while asleep. Of course, nobody has a clear enough definition of "sentience" or "consciousness" to allow the sentence "The LLM is sentient" to be meaningful at all. So it is kind of a waste of time to think about hypothetical obstacles to it.
  - simonh 1y ago
    I'm not sure we always have a sense of time passing when we're awake either. We do when we are focusing on being 'present', but I suspect that when my mind wanders, or I'm thinking deeply about a problem, I have no idea how much time has passed moment to moment. It's just not something I'm spending any cycles on. I have to figure that out by referring to internal and external clues when I come out of that contemplative state.
    - lsaferite 1y ago
      > It's just not something I'm spending any cycles on It's not something you are consciously spending cycles on. Our brains are doing many things we're not aware of. I would posit that timekeeping is one of those. How accurate it is could be debated.
- david-gpu 1y ago
  A person being deeply sedated during surgery does not mean the person can't be sentient while it is not sedated. Therefore, arguing that LLMs can't be sentient because they are not always processing data is very poor. I am not arguing that LLMs are sentient while they process tokens, either. I am saying that intermittent data processing is not a good argument against sentience.
thom 1y ago
I dunno, I’ve done some of my best problem solving in dreams.
nextaccountic 1y ago
Human mind reminds active during sleeping. Dreams are like, what happens to the mind when we unplug the external inputs? We rarely remember dreams though - if we did, we would be overwhelmed to the point of confusing the real world with the dream world.
- Timwi 1y ago
  > if we did, we would be overwhelmed to the point of confusing the real world with the dream world. How do you know? That seems a bold claim, and not one that I suspect has any experimental evidence behind it.
solarwindy 1y ago
The phenomenon of waking up before an especially important alarm speaks against the notion that our cognition ‘stops’ in anything like the same way that an LLM is stopped when not actively predicting the next tokens in an output stream.
- david-gpu 1y ago
  Folks are missing the point, so let me offer some clarification. The silly example I provided in this thread is poking fun at the notion that LLMs can't be sentient because they aren't processing data all the time. Just because an agent isn't sentient for some period of time it doesn't mean it can't be sentient the rest of the time. Picture somebody who wakes up from a deep coma, rather than sleeping, if that works better for you. I am not saying that LLMs are sentient, either. I am only showing that an argument based on the intermittency of their data processing is weak.
  - fasbiner 1y ago
    They’re not missing the point, you have a very imprecise understanding of human biology and it led you to a hamfisted metaphor that is empirically too leaky to be of any use. Even when you tried to correct it, it doesn’t work, because a body in a coma is still running thousands of processes and responds to external stimuli.
    - david-gpu 1y ago
      I suggest reading the thread again to aid in understanding. My argument has precisely nothing to do with human biology, and everything to do with "pauses in data processing do not make sentience impossible". Unless you are seriously arguing that people could not be sentient while awake if they became non-sentient while they are sleeping/unconscious/in a coma. I didn't address that angle because it seemed contrary to the spirit of steel-manning [0]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - fasbiner 1y ago
mrheosuper 1y ago
i'm pretty sure i can wake up at 8am without external alarm.

carra 1y ago

Not a very good analogy. Humans already have a continuous stream of thought during the day between any tasks or when we are "doing nothing". And even when asleep the mind doesn't really stop. The brain stays active: it reorganizes thoughts and dreams.

danlitt 1y ago
Humans do not have a continuous stream of thought when they are asleep, even if their brain is still doing things. Your original example (the LLM can't take actions between problems) is literally the same as the fact that the human can't take actions while asleep. Of course, nobody has a clear enough definition of "sentience" or "consciousness" to allow the sentence "The LLM is sentient" to be meaningful at all. So it is kind of a waste of time to think about hypothetical obstacles to it.
- simonh 1y ago
  I'm not sure we always have a sense of time passing when we're awake either. We do when we are focusing on being 'present', but I suspect that when my mind wanders, or I'm thinking deeply about a problem, I have no idea how much time has passed moment to moment. It's just not something I'm spending any cycles on. I have to figure that out by referring to internal and external clues when I come out of that contemplative state.
  - lsaferite 1y ago
    > It's just not something I'm spending any cycles on It's not something you are consciously spending cycles on. Our brains are doing many things we're not aware of. I would posit that timekeeping is one of those. How accurate it is could be debated.
david-gpu 1y ago
A person being deeply sedated during surgery does not mean the person can't be sentient while it is not sedated. Therefore, arguing that LLMs can't be sentient because they are not always processing data is very poor. I am not arguing that LLMs are sentient while they process tokens, either. I am saying that intermittent data processing is not a good argument against sentience.

thom 1y ago

I dunno, I’ve done some of my best problem solving in dreams.

nextaccountic 1y ago

Human mind reminds active during sleeping. Dreams are like, what happens to the mind when we unplug the external inputs? We rarely remember dreams though - if we did, we would be overwhelmed to the point of confusing the real world with the dream world.

Timwi 1y ago
> if we did, we would be overwhelmed to the point of confusing the real world with the dream world. How do you know? That seems a bold claim, and not one that I suspect has any experimental evidence behind it.

solarwindy 1y ago

The phenomenon of waking up before an especially important alarm speaks against the notion that our cognition ‘stops’ in anything like the same way that an LLM is stopped when not actively predicting the next tokens in an output stream.

david-gpu 1y ago
Folks are missing the point, so let me offer some clarification. The silly example I provided in this thread is poking fun at the notion that LLMs can't be sentient because they aren't processing data all the time. Just because an agent isn't sentient for some period of time it doesn't mean it can't be sentient the rest of the time. Picture somebody who wakes up from a deep coma, rather than sleeping, if that works better for you. I am not saying that LLMs are sentient, either. I am only showing that an argument based on the intermittency of their data processing is weak.
- fasbiner 1y ago
  They’re not missing the point, you have a very imprecise understanding of human biology and it led you to a hamfisted metaphor that is empirically too leaky to be of any use. Even when you tried to correct it, it doesn’t work, because a body in a coma is still running thousands of processes and responds to external stimuli.
  - david-gpu 1y ago
    I suggest reading the thread again to aid in understanding. My argument has precisely nothing to do with human biology, and everything to do with "pauses in data processing do not make sentience impossible". Unless you are seriously arguing that people could not be sentient while awake if they became non-sentient while they are sleeping/unconscious/in a coma. I didn't address that angle because it seemed contrary to the spirit of steel-manning [0]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - fasbiner 1y ago

mrheosuper 1y ago

i'm pretty sure i can wake up at 8am without external alarm.