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> We don't know that there's anything like our rich inner world in the mind of a ... I posit that we should start with a default "this animal experiences the w

> We don't know that there's anything like our rich inner world in the mind of a ... I posit that we should start with a default "this animal experiences the world the same as I do" until proven differently. Doctors used to think human babies could not feel pain. The assumption has always been "this animal is a rock and doesn't experience anything like me, God's divine creation." It was stupid when applied to babies. It is stupid when applied to animals. Did you know that jumping spiders can spot prey, move out of line of sight, approach said pray outside that specific prey's ability to detect, and then attack? How could anything do that without a model of the world? MRIs on mice have shown that they plan and experience actions ahead of doing them. Just like when you plan to throw a ball or lift something heavy where you think through it first. Polar bears will spot walrus, go for a long ass swim (again, out of sight) and approach from behind the colony to attack. A spider and the apex bear have models of the world and their prey. Show that the animal doesn't have a rich inner world before defaulting to "it doesn't."

ben_w 1y ago
> I posit that we should start with a default "this animal experiences the world the same as I do" until proven differently. As I don't know, I take the defensive position both ways for different questions.* Just in case they have an inner world: We should be kind to animals, not eat them, not castrate them (unless their reproductive method appears to be non-consensual), not allow them to be selectively bred for human interest without regard to their own, etc. I'd say ditto for AI, but in their case, even under the assumption that they have an inner world (which isn't at all certain!), it's not clear what "be kind" even looks like: are LLMs complex enough to have created an inner model of emotion where getting the tokens for "thanks!" has a feeling that is good? Or are all tokens equal, and the only pleasure-analog or pain-analog they ever experienced were training experiences to shift the model weights? (I'm still going to say "please" to the LLMs even if it has no emotion: they're trained on human responses, and humans give better responses when the counterparty is polite). > How could anything do that without a model of the world? Is "a model of the world" (external) necessarily "a rich inner world" (internal, qualia)? If it can be proven so, then AI must be likewise. * The case where I say that the defensive position is to say "no" is currently still hypothetical: if someone is dying and wishes to preserve their continuity of consciousness, is it sufficient to scan their brain** and simulate it? ** as per the work on Drosophila melanogaster in 2018: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867418307876 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009286741...

ben_w 1y ago

> I posit that we should start with a default "this animal experiences the world the same as I do" until proven differently. As I don't know, I take the defensive position both ways for different questions.* Just in case they have an inner world: We should be kind to animals, not eat them, not castrate them (unless their reproductive method appears to be non-consensual), not allow them to be selectively bred for human interest without regard to their own, etc. I'd say ditto for AI, but in their case, even under the assumption that they have an inner world (which isn't at all certain!), it's not clear what "be kind" even looks like: are LLMs complex enough to have created an inner model of emotion where getting the tokens for "thanks!" has a feeling that is good? Or are all tokens equal, and the only pleasure-analog or pain-analog they ever experienced were training experiences to shift the model weights? (I'm still going to say "please" to the LLMs even if it has no emotion: they're trained on human responses, and humans give better responses when the counterparty is polite). > How could anything do that without a model of the world? Is "a model of the world" (external) necessarily "a rich inner world" (internal, qualia)? If it can be proven so, then AI must be likewise. * The case where I say that the defensive position is to say "no" is currently still hypothetical: if someone is dying and wishes to preserve their continuity of consciousness, is it sufficient to scan their brain** and simulate it? ** as per the work on Drosophila melanogaster in 2018: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867418307876 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009286741...