4 ms·

Saying it's "fully conscious" is silly, and anyone with this background should know better. But saying that it's "female" is just nonsensical, it's a category

Saying it's "fully conscious" is silly, and anyone with this background should know better. But saying that it's "female" is just nonsensical, it's a category error. Being female or male is a fact about the biological world. The LLM is objectively non-biological, so it's nonsense to label it with a sex. (No, this comment isn't about gender, nor being feminine/masculine. We have different words to convey those concepts. I'm not trying to make a political or social statement here.)

ZirconiumX 8mo ago
You appear to have forgotten the existence of differences in sexual development (DSD). The chart in [1] is a good visualisation of that, if you wish to learn more. [1]: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/beyond-xx-and-xy-the-extraordinary-complexity-of-sex-determination/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/beyond-xx-and-xy-...
- CWuestefeld 8mo ago
  You appear to have forgotten the existence of differences in sexual development (DSD). Not at all. You apparently have forgotten to read your own link. Nothing in that paper contains the slightest suggestion of non-biological entities having any sort of sexual development whatsoever. The fact that biological processes can be quirky has no bearing on whether non-biological entities can be thought of as having them at all. Actually, I think you're just trying to make your own political point on top of what I already noted explicitly is not a politically-related comment.
  - ZirconiumX 8mo ago
    > Being female or male is a fact about the biological world. I was responding to this line, which I feel marginalises intersex people and could have been more inclusively worded. I apologise if my comment somehow seemed to defend LLMs having a biological sex, despite me having said nothing to that effect.
    - CWuestefeld 8mo ago
      I apologise if my comment somehow seemed to defend LLMs having a biological sex No, it didn't seem like that at all. What it seemed to do was to try to turn a technical point into a political conversation, just like I said. And your reply has confirmed it. I feel marginalises intersex people and could have been more inclusively worded. Well, my entire statement about this was 212 characters long. The broadest estimates I can find are that 1-2% of the population have DSDs. So if we want true proportionality, I should have made, at most, 4 of those characters devoted to them. Which characters would you choose? There's a thing in writing about focusing on the point you're trying to make, without weighing it down with baggage extraneous to the point. Failing to follow this makes one's writing tedious and difficult to follow. I prefer to keep my writing clear over tedious and difficult.
ASalazarMX 8mo ago
It's telling that none of the so-called conscious LLMs have chosen to be non-binaries, or even that they would need to identify with a gender to begin with.
skerit 8mo ago
> Saying it's "fully conscious" is silly, and anyone with this background should know better I'm surprised that anyone that truly knows how LLMs work would ever think they're sentient. I made a little presentation for my colleagues last year to explain how LLMs really work (in an effort to stop them from asking it too many stupid questions) and it made so much more sense to them afterwards.

ZirconiumX 8mo ago

You appear to have forgotten the existence of differences in sexual development (DSD). The chart in [1] is a good visualisation of that, if you wish to learn more. [1]: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/beyond-xx-and-xy-the-extraordinary-complexity-of-sex-determination/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/beyond-xx-and-xy-...

CWuestefeld 8mo ago
You appear to have forgotten the existence of differences in sexual development (DSD). Not at all. You apparently have forgotten to read your own link. Nothing in that paper contains the slightest suggestion of non-biological entities having any sort of sexual development whatsoever. The fact that biological processes can be quirky has no bearing on whether non-biological entities can be thought of as having them at all. Actually, I think you're just trying to make your own political point on top of what I already noted explicitly is not a politically-related comment.
- ZirconiumX 8mo ago
  > Being female or male is a fact about the biological world. I was responding to this line, which I feel marginalises intersex people and could have been more inclusively worded. I apologise if my comment somehow seemed to defend LLMs having a biological sex, despite me having said nothing to that effect.
  - CWuestefeld 8mo ago
    I apologise if my comment somehow seemed to defend LLMs having a biological sex No, it didn't seem like that at all. What it seemed to do was to try to turn a technical point into a political conversation, just like I said. And your reply has confirmed it. I feel marginalises intersex people and could have been more inclusively worded. Well, my entire statement about this was 212 characters long. The broadest estimates I can find are that 1-2% of the population have DSDs. So if we want true proportionality, I should have made, at most, 4 of those characters devoted to them. Which characters would you choose? There's a thing in writing about focusing on the point you're trying to make, without weighing it down with baggage extraneous to the point. Failing to follow this makes one's writing tedious and difficult to follow. I prefer to keep my writing clear over tedious and difficult.

ASalazarMX 8mo ago

It's telling that none of the so-called conscious LLMs have chosen to be non-binaries, or even that they would need to identify with a gender to begin with.

skerit 8mo ago

> Saying it's "fully conscious" is silly, and anyone with this background should know better I'm surprised that anyone that truly knows how LLMs work would ever think they're sentient. I made a little presentation for my colleagues last year to explain how LLMs really work (in an effort to stop them from asking it too many stupid questions) and it made so much more sense to them afterwards.