3 ms·
Yes. There are really three separate questions: - Are current LLMs conscious? - Is it possible that future versions of LLMs with similar architectures coul
by orangecat 4mo ago
Yes. There are really three separate questions:
- Are current LLMs conscious?
- Is it possible that future versions of LLMs with similar architectures could be conscious?
- Can any AI be conscious?
I'd assign probabilities of around 0.1, 0.2, and 0.9. My completely ignorant take is that we probably need something more "dynamic" than a bunch of transformer layers in order to produce consciousness, but I wouldn't be shocked to be mistaken.
- overgard 4mo agoI think 10-20% chance is wildly generous. What specific mechanism makes you think there's a 10% chance that current LLMs are conscious?
- sebzim4500 4mo agoNot GP but given we have no idea what conciousness is it seems foolhardy to go too low or too high for any of those numbers
- overgard 4mo agoI think the problem with this argument is that it's too inclusive. Is the bacteria that's adapted to an antibiotic conscious? It's showing intelligence right? I think if you're going to say something is potentially conscious, for me to take the argument seriously at least, there needs to be some plausible mechanism. I just don't see one for LLMs.
- throwawayk7h 4mo agomaybe the bacteria are conscious. How sure are we that they're not? The only strong argument I have against it is the anthropic principle -- there are billions of times more bacteria than humans, so it's overwhelmingly unlikely that I'd be a human rather than a bacteria. Not a very good argument of course.
- sebzim4500 4mo agoYeah I get what you are saying but I don't see much of a plausible mechanism for humans either and yet clearly there is one.
- RivieraKid 4mo agoI assign probabilities of zero to all 3. Computer program being conscious leads to ridiculous and obviously false conclusions (think about a person running a program using pen and paper for memory).
- throwawayk7h 4mo agowhy is that obviously false? To a functionalist, a pen and paper and a set of rules is sufficient for consciousness.
- RivieraKid 4mo agoGist of the argument: If it was true, you can create extreme pain by running a program. You can run the program by simulating a CPU, using pen and paper for memory. So you're essentially claiming that some simulated being is in pain because there are some 1s and 0s on paper. In fact, you can decide to use an arbitrary encoding of the memory, so a sufficiently long sequence of 0s written on paper corresponds to a simulated being feeling pain in some encoding. That is clearly nonsense.
- thinkling 4mo agoTime scale matters a lot in how we as humans perceive things like agency. Plants grow too slow for us to see any intent, but when you speed up a time lapse, suddenly it looks like plants reach for sunlight and vines for supports. Now, that may be projection on our part, but it may not be.
- Taek 4mo agoIsn't pain just a manifestation of a bunch of chemical and electrical signals in the brain and body? It's not "clearly nonsense" to me that you could cause pain by writing a sufficiently long sequence of 0's - for it to be obviously wrong, you'd have to have some understanding of where consciousness comes from. If you don't understand that, how can you assert that it doesn't come from mathematical relationships?