4 ms·

I look forward to other papers on spreadsheet consciousness and terminal emulator consciousness.

by gizajob 11mo ago

ACCount37 11mo ago
The notion doesn't strike me as something that's much more ridiculous than consciousness of wet meat.
EarlKing 11mo ago
We'll know AGI has arrived when we finally see papers on Coca Cola Vending Machine Consciousness.
- falcor84 11mo ago
  Following up on Anthropic's Project Vend [0] and given the rising popularity of Vending-Bench[1], it's actually quite likely that by the time an AI is deemed to possess consciousness, it will have already been tested in a vending machine. [0] https://www.anthropic.com/research/project-vend-1 https://www.anthropic.com/research/project-vend-1 [1] https://andonlabs.com/evals/vending-bench https://andonlabs.com/evals/vending-bench
meowface 11mo ago
I think it's very unlikely any current LLMs are conscious, but these snarky comments are tiresome. I would be surprised if you read a significant amount of the post.
- rbanffy 11mo ago
  I believe the biggest issue creating a testable definition for conscientiousness. Unless we can prove we are sentient (and we really can't - I could just be faking it), this is not a discussion we can have in scientific terms.
  - grantcas 11mo ago
    [dead]
  - gizajob 11mo ago
    It’s really trivial to prove but the issue is that sentience is not something you need to negate out of existence and then attempt reconstruct out of epistemological proofs. You’re not faking it, and if you were, then turn your sentience off and on again. If your idea comes from Dennett then he’s barking up completely the wrong tree. You know at a deep level that a cat is sentient and a rock isn’t. You know that an octopus and a cat have different modes of sentience to that potentially in a plant, and same again for a machine running electrical computations on silicon. These are the kinds of certainties that all of your other experiences of the world hinge upon.
    - meowface 11mo ago
      I agree with the first few parts of your second paragraph but I don't think you can extrapolate that to the extent you're attempting. Evaluating consciousness in machines is not going to be easy.
    - rbanffy 11mo ago
      > You know at a deep level that a cat is sentient and a rock isn’t. An axiom is not a proof. I BELIEVE cats are sentient and rocks aren’t, but without a test, I can’t really prove it. Even if we could understand completely the sentience of a cat, to the point we knew for sure what if feels to be a cat from the inside, we can’t rule out other forms of sentience based on principles completely different from an organic brain and even embodied experience.
      - gizajob 11mo ago
        Maybe in mathematics but not in philosophy because eventually you have to decide on the certainties without which the universe cannot be made sense of or reconstructed from proofs. If I pricked you with a pin, I would be certain that it hurt you and I could know what that sensation would be like if it was happening to me. Yet there is no description or no apparatus that could transmit to me that feeling you are having. So no we cannot rule it out that computers are having conscious and experiences but from the nature of their being and the type of machine that they are, we can consider that it is not of the same degree as ours. Which is why I made my initial observation - the machine running the spreadsheet or the terminal emulator will never cause me to believe it is having conscious experiences. Just because now that same machine is producing complicated and confusing textual outputs it remains the same type of machine as it was before running the AI software.
- gizajob 11mo ago
  What, all two brief pages of it
dboreham 11mo ago
"Consciousness" is just what we call the thing we can't quite define that we believe separates us from other kinds of machine.
- gizajob 11mo ago
  We’re not a machine
  - jquery 11mo ago
    Where's the non-machine part of the human body that doesn't follow physical laws?
    - measurablefunc 11mo ago
      Are you aware of all possible laws of the universe? Furthermore, asking questions is not how one makes a positive & justifiable claim.
  - meowface 11mo ago
    Do you think a machine simply could not be conscious? (Also, we definitely and obviously are a machine. But ignore that for now.)
    - gizajob 11mo ago
      Only if you first define us as a machine then you win by default. I’m a human, with all the complexities and contradictions and paradoxes that involves. Machines are tools we create.
      - meowface 11mo ago
        I do not understand what you mean. Why would a non-animal machine never be able to have complexities and contradictions and paradoxes?

I look forward to other papers on spreadsheet consciousness and terminal emulator consciousness.

by gizajob 11mo ago

I look forward to other papers on spreadsheet consciousness and terminal emulator consciousness.

ACCount37 11mo ago

The notion doesn't strike me as something that's much more ridiculous than consciousness of wet meat.

EarlKing 11mo ago

We'll know AGI has arrived when we finally see papers on Coca Cola Vending Machine Consciousness.

falcor84 11mo ago
Following up on Anthropic's Project Vend [0] and given the rising popularity of Vending-Bench[1], it's actually quite likely that by the time an AI is deemed to possess consciousness, it will have already been tested in a vending machine. [0] https://www.anthropic.com/research/project-vend-1 https://www.anthropic.com/research/project-vend-1 [1] https://andonlabs.com/evals/vending-bench https://andonlabs.com/evals/vending-bench

meowface 11mo ago

I think it's very unlikely any current LLMs are conscious, but these snarky comments are tiresome. I would be surprised if you read a significant amount of the post.

rbanffy 11mo ago
I believe the biggest issue creating a testable definition for conscientiousness. Unless we can prove we are sentient (and we really can't - I could just be faking it), this is not a discussion we can have in scientific terms.
- grantcas 11mo ago
  [dead]
- gizajob 11mo ago
  It’s really trivial to prove but the issue is that sentience is not something you need to negate out of existence and then attempt reconstruct out of epistemological proofs. You’re not faking it, and if you were, then turn your sentience off and on again. If your idea comes from Dennett then he’s barking up completely the wrong tree. You know at a deep level that a cat is sentient and a rock isn’t. You know that an octopus and a cat have different modes of sentience to that potentially in a plant, and same again for a machine running electrical computations on silicon. These are the kinds of certainties that all of your other experiences of the world hinge upon.
  - meowface 11mo ago
    I agree with the first few parts of your second paragraph but I don't think you can extrapolate that to the extent you're attempting. Evaluating consciousness in machines is not going to be easy.
  - rbanffy 11mo ago
    > You know at a deep level that a cat is sentient and a rock isn’t. An axiom is not a proof. I BELIEVE cats are sentient and rocks aren’t, but without a test, I can’t really prove it. Even if we could understand completely the sentience of a cat, to the point we knew for sure what if feels to be a cat from the inside, we can’t rule out other forms of sentience based on principles completely different from an organic brain and even embodied experience.
    - gizajob 11mo ago
      Maybe in mathematics but not in philosophy because eventually you have to decide on the certainties without which the universe cannot be made sense of or reconstructed from proofs. If I pricked you with a pin, I would be certain that it hurt you and I could know what that sensation would be like if it was happening to me. Yet there is no description or no apparatus that could transmit to me that feeling you are having. So no we cannot rule it out that computers are having conscious and experiences but from the nature of their being and the type of machine that they are, we can consider that it is not of the same degree as ours. Which is why I made my initial observation - the machine running the spreadsheet or the terminal emulator will never cause me to believe it is having conscious experiences. Just because now that same machine is producing complicated and confusing textual outputs it remains the same type of machine as it was before running the AI software.
gizajob 11mo ago
What, all two brief pages of it

dboreham 11mo ago

"Consciousness" is just what we call the thing we can't quite define that we believe separates us from other kinds of machine.

gizajob 11mo ago
We’re not a machine
- jquery 11mo ago
  Where's the non-machine part of the human body that doesn't follow physical laws?
  - measurablefunc 11mo ago
    Are you aware of all possible laws of the universe? Furthermore, asking questions is not how one makes a positive & justifiable claim.
- meowface 11mo ago
  Do you think a machine simply could not be conscious? (Also, we definitely and obviously are a machine. But ignore that for now.)
  - gizajob 11mo ago
    Only if you first define us as a machine then you win by default. I’m a human, with all the complexities and contradictions and paradoxes that involves. Machines are tools we create.
    - meowface 11mo ago
      I do not understand what you mean. Why would a non-animal machine never be able to have complexities and contradictions and paradoxes?