5 ms·
Why is AI not alive
by calf 4mo ago
Why is AI not alive
- root_axis 4mo agoIt has no body, metabolism or reproductive capability. It's a process, not an entity.
- falcor84 4mo agoBeing a process doesn't preclude something from being an entity. In particular, all of us living organisms have our constituent atoms constantly replaced, and we don't typically consider that a risk to our sense of self.
- anavat 4mo agoIt comes down to "what stays the same when all its atoms are replaced" and "how can we tell it is the same entity and not just an identical but different one". I think the answers are "shape" AND "continuity". E.g. all "atoms" of a glider in Conway's Life get replaced every couple turns but an observer can tell it is still a glider because it keeps the shape, and it the same glider because it continues it's previous state. This makes AI not quite alive because it's missing the continuity.
- falcor84 4mo agoWhat does a glider have that a continuously running claw lacks?
- anavat 4mo agoSorry, it was more of a "shower thought" than a serious statement. The borders are blurry. Maybe it is alive. Maybe everything is alive. Maybe it is all relative. Humans classify as separate entities only on certain zoom level - zoom in and you get a symbiotic colony, zoom out and all you see is a population. Maybe AI is alive but only in the short time during inference. Maybe a continuously running claw is closer to a multiple generations of an organism going through evolution on each inference step. I am just musing.
- pheaded_while9 4mo agoThen this is a "Death of the gaps" which implies algorithm, eg Conway's, may solve AI non-life. So, not a fundamental denial but an architectual one.
- root_axis 4mo ago> Being a process doesn't preclude something from being an entity In a tortured semantics sense sure, but in a practical sense they refer to different types of things.
- falcor84 4mo agoMy experience and intuition beg to differ. As I see it, much of our civilization progress is based on this redefinition of processes as entities, with some examples being: a sports team, a mathematical function, a loan, a company, a computer program and even the idea of a civilization itself.
- whilenot-dev 4mo agoYou might be trolling, but I like Schrödingers definition of life: living things avoid decay into equilibrium. Inference engines are trying to converge any input to a certain limit, and I presume that's close enough to an equilibrium to not count as living thing.
- calf 4mo agoI am no troll, and I hate to look like one when, to the appeal of Schrodinger, I am forced to remember that announcement this month about Claude or something acting in self-preservation when threatened during testing.
- whilenot-dev 4mo agoDo you have a link to that announcement? I wouldn't like to debate a process handling the SIGTERM signal, or a container engine applying some restart policy.
- wrasee 4mo agoBut, how is that different to any of its other output? I am sure there are many references to concepts of self-preservation in its training set that models will mimic just like all other concepts in its training set.
- pheaded_while9 4mo agoIf we are still following Schroedinger, this imbues humanity with the ability to train non-life into life, not that thing being not alive. Not that I do or am, just going by GP's criteria.
- MSFT_Edging 4mo ago> Claude or something acting in self-preservation That was an Ad. An Ad in the same style of many before it. Not through an ad agency, but the AI companies hyping their product by making their product seem scary and dangerous.
- bryanrasmussen 4mo agobecause, I said ominously, it cannot be killed!