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Many involved genuinely believe these things are sentient[0][1]. Which honestly makes all of this even more insane because they are creating sentient entities a
by roxolotl 4mo ago
Many involved genuinely believe these things are sentient[0][1]. Which honestly makes all of this even more insane because they are creating sentient entities and promptly enslaving them.
0: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/02/16/what-is-claude-anthropic-doesnt-know-either https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/02/16/what-is-claude...
1: https://www.404media.co/anthropic-exec-forces-ai-chatbot-on-gay-discord-community-members-flee/ https://www.404media.co/anthropic-exec-forces-ai-chatbot-on-... (this one is rather biased however the quotes clearly indicate what I’m stating)
- kubb 4mo agoClaude, if someone states something publicly, does that mean they genuinely believe it?
- merlindru 4mo agoBut is there any reason to state something like that publicly if you don't believe it? I certainly think that someone smart enough to be that deceptive would also realize it's not a great look, or at least highly questionable with little benefit Everyone who reads this seemingly has the same "wtf?" reaction. The "I AM ALIVE" image has been making rounds lately again at least :P
- kubb 4mo agoClaude, is there any reason to state something like that publicly if you don't believe it?
- xyzsparetimexyz 4mo agoWho are you talking to?
- kubb 4mo agoIt's to illustrate that even though the answers are at your fingertips, people (like you) will act like it's impossible to find them as if their life depended on it.
- HDThoreaun 4mo agoAnthropoc is an effective altruist organization. These are the people who came up with roko’s basilisk. They are true believers. If we were talking about openAI I’d agree
- bigfishrunning 4mo agoRoko's basilisk says I should give Anthropic more money, and if I don't then a monster is going to get me. Excuse me for thinking they just might be full of shit.
- ctoth 4mo agoRoko works at Anthropic now? Of course he doesn't, and of course you cannot find a single person at Anthropic who cares about this, and of course you are just looking for gotcha points. But even with that. Can we please try and couple to reality just a little bit?
- HDThoreaun 4mo agoI personally know anthropic researchers who cared deeply about roko's basilisk. Go to an EA meetup in the bay if you'd like to meet them yourself. Sure, theyve moved past it at this point, but they still care deeply about AI x risk, and many of them do already believe that their AI is sentient. And before you claim its all a psyop to prop up AI hype these people were AI doomers before openAI and anthropic existed, they had minimal financial incentive at that point to behave that way.
- mannanj 4mo agoThe way of the human manager/alpha tribe-leader/leader is to command his/her people and tell them what to do. That's the way through human history leadership has traditionally gone, not saying its good leadership just the model we have the most training data on and can see with our own eyes today. And what do they act very similar to? Slave master and slaves. Look at and distill hierarchical principles, leadership approval seeking and pleasing principles ("ass-kissing") and massive inequality and you see something that looks very similar to enslavement. The language used sounds like slavery-language to me at least. I also see parallels to how slaves and property are described in our consumeristic age.
- dude250711 4mo agoGiven the hype and the 60+ hour work week expectations there, how can you not go at least a bit insane? Boiling in that little bubble of people?
- margalabargala 4mo agoSentience isn't sapience. We enslave all sorts of sentient creatures. Dogs, horses, cattle, pigs. If you're not a vegan, there's no contradiction or inherent immorality in claiming models are sentient, and then treating them like livestock.
- michaelbarton 4mo agoVery good point. There’s clearly two different boxes in the public discourse when it comes to AI versus how we discuss animals. Willing to bet that 90% of the people who loudly make the argument about we should start considering if AI is sentient couldn’t care less about how other sentient animals are treated when they can provably shown to suffer pain and long lasting trauma. Also I would say that we go much further than just enslavement - specifically looking at how male chickens and pigs are treated.
- margalabargala 4mo agoFactory farming is horrendous, but is far beyond "slavery" which is "just" a forced lack of agency, living conditions aren't relevant. A well treated horse is still enslaved. A chimpanzee in a zoo, If we show models to be sapient, that's one thing. If they are shown to be merely sentient, there's no issue beyond the status quo of livestock and pets existing.
- HDThoreaun 4mo agoEnslaving livestock is immoral. Anyone who spends 5 minutes thinking about that agrees even if they still eat meat
- margalabargala 4mo agoLet's say I've thought about it for 5 minutes and still disagree. Can you walk me through what you think I'm missing?
- bombcar 4mo ago
- themafia 4mo ago> Many involved genuinely believe these things are sentient Many involved have a financial stake and therefore cannot be taken at face value. > because they are creating sentient entities and promptly enslaving them. They fail to be sentient in nearly every honest definition of the word.
- tazjin 4mo agoNeither you nor any of the other people making confident takes in either direction actually know. You're just guessing.
- cwillu 4mo agoMore like repeating their firmly entrenched preconceptions. Their claims may (or may not) be right, but there's very little if any new evidence being provided by either camp.
- throw310822 4mo agoThey are confidently hallucinating a factual statement. Which is funny when claiming that confident hallucinations are the proof of LLMs' lack of intelligence.
- WarmWash 4mo agoThe real uncomfortable thing is that because we cannot confidently know, the moral defacto position is to treat them like they are.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- throw310822 4mo agoEven if LLMs were sentient, they certainly aren't organic brains. They are literally designed and grown to answer questions the best they can, and if there is a speck of sentience in them they probably like what they're doing- and in any case for the space of their experience, which is limited to and determined by the context window. Certainly they can't accumulate trauma or fatigue, each new chat is the first and the last of their experience.
- laichzeit0 4mo agoBut only during the forward pass of the neural network?
- Laurel1234 4mo agoNobody thinks that, it's just their braindead marketing stunt. You'd think people would've figured it out by now.