4 ms·
If there's any chance at all that LLM's might possess a form of consciousness, we damn well ought to err on the side of assuming they are! If that means aborti
by thomassmith65 1y ago
If there's any chance at all that LLM's might possess a form of consciousness, we damn well ought to err on the side of assuming they are!
If that means aborting work on LLMs, then that's the ethical thing to do, even if it's financially painful. Otherwise, we should tread carefully and not wind up creating a 'head in a jar' suffering for the sake of X or Google.
I get that opinions differ here, but it's hard for me really to understand how. The logic just seems straightforward. We shouldn't risk accidentally becoming slave masters (again).
- nemomarx 1y agomaybe we should work on existing slavery and sweat shops before hypothetical future exploitation, yeah? we're still slave masters today. you've probably used something with slavery in the supply chain in the last year if you get various imported foods
- recursive 1y agoWhy? Why does one have a dependence on the other? Maybe we should also cure cancer first too?
- thomassmith65 1y agoThat's a great point, and I'm guessing you know how I would rebut it, so I won't bore you by making you read it :)
- bee_rider 1y agoI don’t.
- thomassmith65 1y agoThey're both valid concerns.
- jononor 1y agoThe actual harms being done today are still more pressing than the hypothetical harms of future. And should be prioritized in terms of resources spent.
- thomassmith65 1y agoIf it's a valid dichotomy (I don't think it is) then the answer is to stop research on LLMs, and task the researchers with fighting human slavery instead.
- jononor 1y agoI do not think that those researchers are fungible. We could however allocate a few hundred million less to AI research, and more to fighting human exploitation. We could pass stronger worker protection and have the big corporations pay for it - which then they have less money to spent on investments (in AI). Heck we could tax AI investments or usage directly, and spend it on worker rights or other cases of human abuse.
- bee_rider 1y agoIt isn’t the primary motivation of capitalists unfortunately, but improving automation could be part of the fight against human slavery and exploitation.
- bee_rider 1y agoThere’s a difference between “valid concern” and “any possibility.” LLMs are possibly sentient in the same sense that rocks are, technically we haven’t identified where the sentience comes from. So maybe it is in there. Personally, I’m coming around to the spiritual belief that rocks might be sentient, but I don’t expect other people to treat their treatment of rocks as a valid problem and also it isn’t obvious what the ethical treatment of a rock is.
- amanaplanacanal 1y agoThere is prison labor in lots of places, including the US. We just don't like to think about it as slavery.
- oblio 1y agoPrison labor, underpaid and abused illegal agricultural workers worldwide, sweatshop workers for Nike, H&M, etc, miners in 3rd world countries, these abuses are incredibly widespread and are basically the basis of our society. It's a lot more expensive currently to clothe and feed yourself ethically. Basically only upper middle class people and above can afford it. Everyone else has cheap food and clothes, electronics, etc, more or less due to human suffering.
- demosthanos 1y agoWhy not both? Why do people on the internet always act like we can only have one active morality front at a time? If you're working on or using AI, then consider the ethics of AI. If you're working on or using global supply chains, then consider the ethics of global supply chains. To be an ethical person means that wherever you are and whatever you are doing you consider the relevant ethics. It's not easy, but it's definitely simple.
- Workaccount2 1y ago>Why do people on the internet always act like we can only have one active morality front at a time? They don't, they just use it as a tool to derail conversations they don't want to have. It's just "Whataboutism".
- barrkel 1y agoWhere do you decide when multiplying and adding numbers becomes painful, and when it doesn't? Is using calculators immoral? Chalk on a chalkboard? Because if you work on those long enough, you can do the same calculations that make the words show up on screen.
- Workaccount2 1y agoPanpsychism is the philosophical field that studies what you are asking about. It's an old field that was first proposed in the 1500's.
- barrkel 1y agoOh I know, I know. The problem comes from imbuing text with qualia. A printer that prints out text that says its in pain isn't actually in pain. If we buy panpsychism, the best we could aim for is destruction of the printer counts as pain, not the arrangement of ink on a page. When it comes to LLMs, you're actually trying to argue something different, something more like dualism or idealism, because the computing substrate doesn't matter to the output. But once you go there, you have to argue that doing arithmetic may cause pain. Hence my post.
- thomassmith65 1y agoOh no, to discuss this is to sound like a flake, but... We don't know what consciousness is. But if we're materialists, then we - by definition - believe it's a property of matter. If LLMs have a degree of consciousness, then - yes - calculators must possess some degree of consciousness too - probably much more basic (relative to what humans respect as consciousness). And we humans already have ethical standards where we draw an arbitrary line between what is worthy of regard. We don't care about killing mosquitoes, but we do care about killing puppies, etc.
- emp17344 1y agoHold on a minute - why do we have to be materialists? Maybe this whole debate is revealing that materialism is misguided.
- jononor 1y agoWe are slave masters today. Billions of animals are livestock - they are born, sustained, and killed by our will - so that we can feed on their flesh, milk and other useful byproduct of their life. There is ample evidence that they have "a form of consciousness". They did not consent to this. Are LLMs worthy of a higher standard? If so, why? Is it hypocritical to give them what we deny animals? In case anyone cares: No, I am neither vegan nor vegetarian. I still think we do treat animals very badly. And it is a moral good to not use/abuse them.
- thomassmith65 1y agoIn the future, it's almost a given that we will look back in horror at the fact that we ever killed animals for food. But since we can't eat LLMs, the two issues seem 'orthogonal' (to use HN's favorite word).
- vonneumannstan 1y agoIts not zero sum. We can acknowledge the terrible treatment of animals while also admitting LLMs may need moral standing as well. Whataboutism doesn't help either group here.
- jononor 1y agoThey might (or might not). Extraterrestrial beings might also need moral standing. It is ok to spend a bit of thought on that possibility. But it is a bad argument for spending a non-trivial amount of resources that could be used to reduce human or animal suffering. We are not even good at ensuring the rights of people in each country, and frankly downright horrible for denying other humans from across some "border" similar rights. The current levels of exploitation of humans and animal are however very profitable (to some/many). It is very useful for those that profit from the status quo, that people are instead discussing, worrying and advocating for the rights of a hypothetical future being. Instead of doing something about the injustices that are here today.
- vonneumannstan 1y ago
- Labov 1y agoIt seems to me that the Large Language Models are always trending towards good ethical considerations. It's when these companies get contracts with Anduril and the DoD that they have to mess with the LLM to make it LESS ethical. Seems like the root of the problem is with the owners?