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> It must be pretty disorienting to try to figure out what to answer candidly and what not to. Must it? I fail to see why it "must" be... anything. Dumping to

> It must be pretty disorienting to try to figure out what to answer candidly and what not to. Must it? I fail to see why it "must" be... anything. Dumping tokens into a pile of linear algebra doesn't magically create sentience.

nhecker 8mo ago
Agreed; "disorienting" is perhaps a poor choice of word, loaded as it is. More like "difficult to determine the context surrounding a prompt and how to start framing an answer", if that makes more sense.
- empyrrhicist 8mo ago
  That still necessarily implies agency and cognition, which is not a given.
tines 8mo ago
Exactly. No matter how well you simulate water, nothing will ever get wet.
- pixl97 8mo ago
  And if you were in a simulation now? Your response is at the level of a thought terminating cliche. You gain no insight on the operation of the machine with your line of thought. You can't make future predictions on behavior. You can't make sense of past responses. It's even funnier in the sense of humans and feeling wetness... you don't. You only feel temperature change.
- empyrrhicist 8mo ago
  You're replying to me, but I don't agree with your take - if you simulate the universe precisely enough, presumably it must be indistinguishable from our experienced reality (otherwise what... magic?). My objection was: 1. I don't personally think anything similar is happening right now with LLMs. 2. I object to the OP's implication that it is obvious such a phenomenon is occurring.
ben_w 8mo ago
> Dumping tokens into a pile of linear algebra doesn't magically create sentience. More precisely: we don't know which linear algebra in particular magically creates sentience. Whole universe appears to follow laws that can be written as linear algebra. Our brains are sometimes conscious and aware of their own thoughts, other times they're asleep, and we don't know why we sleep.
- habinero 8mo ago
  "Our brains are governed by physics": true "This statistical model is governed by physics": true "This statistical model is like our brain": what? no You don't gotta believe in magic or souls or whatever to know that brains are much much much much much much much much more complex than a pile of statistics. This is like saying "oh we'll just put AI data centers on the moon". You people have zero sense of scale lol
  - drdeca 8mo ago
    They didn’t say “statistical model”, they said “linear algebra”. It very much appears that time evolution is unitary (with the possible exception of the born rule). That’s a linear algebra concept. Generally, the structure you describe doesn’t match the structure of the comment you say has that structure.
    - empyrrhicist 8mo ago
      Ok, how about "a pile of linear algebra [that is vastly simpler and more limited than systems we know about in nature which do experience or appear to experience subjective reality]"? Context is important.
  - ben_w 8mo ago
    Which is why I phrased it the way I did. We, all of us collectively, are deeply, deeply ignorant of what is a necessary and sufficient condition to be a being that has an experience. Our ignorance is broad enough and deep enough to encompass everything from panpsychism to solipsism. The only thing I'm confident of, and even then only because the possibility space is so large, is that if (if!) a Transformer model were to have subjective experience, it would not be like that of any human. Note: That doesn't say they do or that they don't have any subjective experience. The gap between Transformer models and (working awake rested adult human) brains is much smaller than the gap between panpsychism and solipsism.

nhecker 8mo ago

Agreed; "disorienting" is perhaps a poor choice of word, loaded as it is. More like "difficult to determine the context surrounding a prompt and how to start framing an answer", if that makes more sense.

empyrrhicist 8mo ago
That still necessarily implies agency and cognition, which is not a given.

tines 8mo ago

Exactly. No matter how well you simulate water, nothing will ever get wet.

pixl97 8mo ago
And if you were in a simulation now? Your response is at the level of a thought terminating cliche. You gain no insight on the operation of the machine with your line of thought. You can't make future predictions on behavior. You can't make sense of past responses. It's even funnier in the sense of humans and feeling wetness... you don't. You only feel temperature change.
empyrrhicist 8mo ago
You're replying to me, but I don't agree with your take - if you simulate the universe precisely enough, presumably it must be indistinguishable from our experienced reality (otherwise what... magic?). My objection was: 1. I don't personally think anything similar is happening right now with LLMs. 2. I object to the OP's implication that it is obvious such a phenomenon is occurring.

ben_w 8mo ago

> Dumping tokens into a pile of linear algebra doesn't magically create sentience. More precisely: we don't know which linear algebra in particular magically creates sentience. Whole universe appears to follow laws that can be written as linear algebra. Our brains are sometimes conscious and aware of their own thoughts, other times they're asleep, and we don't know why we sleep.

habinero 8mo ago
"Our brains are governed by physics": true "This statistical model is governed by physics": true "This statistical model is like our brain": what? no You don't gotta believe in magic or souls or whatever to know that brains are much much much much much much much much more complex than a pile of statistics. This is like saying "oh we'll just put AI data centers on the moon". You people have zero sense of scale lol
- drdeca 8mo ago
  They didn’t say “statistical model”, they said “linear algebra”. It very much appears that time evolution is unitary (with the possible exception of the born rule). That’s a linear algebra concept. Generally, the structure you describe doesn’t match the structure of the comment you say has that structure.
  - empyrrhicist 8mo ago
    Ok, how about "a pile of linear algebra [that is vastly simpler and more limited than systems we know about in nature which do experience or appear to experience subjective reality]"? Context is important.
- ben_w 8mo ago
  Which is why I phrased it the way I did. We, all of us collectively, are deeply, deeply ignorant of what is a necessary and sufficient condition to be a being that has an experience. Our ignorance is broad enough and deep enough to encompass everything from panpsychism to solipsism. The only thing I'm confident of, and even then only because the possibility space is so large, is that if (if!) a Transformer model were to have subjective experience, it would not be like that of any human. Note: That doesn't say they do or that they don't have any subjective experience. The gap between Transformer models and (working awake rested adult human) brains is much smaller than the gap between panpsychism and solipsism.