4 ms·

I hadn't even considered it, and we're in a much bigger mess than I'd thought if people are seriously discussing the idea. People really don't understand these

I hadn't even considered it, and we're in a much bigger mess than I'd thought if people are seriously discussing the idea. People really don't understand these things.

dozerly 2mo ago
Nope, not at all. There are murmurings in HN of this topic, and HN is an extreme bubble when it comes to technical proficiency. It’s easy to forget just how untechnical 99% of people are.
- watwut 2mo ago
  I would not be shocked if tech bros were behind the idea in the first place.
  - dozerly 1mo ago
    Any truly technical person cannot be behind this idea.
scarmig 2mo ago
No one understands these things, which is why considering machine consciousness as a possibility is entirely reasonable. People who have a shallow model of how they work ("it's just linear algebra!") betray a lack of understanding.
- hypfer 2mo ago
  What are you talking about. No. obviously it's not suddenly reasonable. I don't understand orbital mechanics, therefore, believing that the sun orbits the earth is entirely reasonable. Listen to yourself. __ Okay I've checked your comment history. Yea. Might be self-serving to argue for personhood of LLMs. Can we _please_ do something about this?
- goatlover 2mo ago
  I see no reason to seriously consider that current AI is in any way conscious. It's fun as thought experiment people like to play with. The technology is not some black box, it was designed by humans who understand it well enough to keep building and improving it.
  - scarmig 2mo ago
    My argument isn't that current AI is definitively conscious or that it will be in the short term. It's that nobody has a cohesive theory of consciousness, and that we should therefore approach questions of what's conscious and what's not with humility. For LLMs in particular, it's notable that they both 1) originate from a lineage that attempted to model biological brains mathematically and 2) are the only other known entities in the universe able to reproduce many types of human intellectual labor. That is surprising and striking. Does that mean that they definitively share other traits with humans like consciousness? No, but it does make them one of the most interesting candidates, particularly when we have a very limited understanding of how humans themselves are conscious.
    - tambeb 2mo ago
      Yes, nobody has a cohesive theory of consciousness. At the same time I can say with 100% certainty that LLMs (or any current "AI") is in any way, shape, or form, conscious. Not even close. A decade or two ago it was the Internet that was a possible emerging consciousness.
      - scarmig 2mo ago
        Why? What makes you so absolutely certain? 100% is a lot, which implies you do have at least some privileged understanding of consciousness.
        sph 2mo ago
        As usual, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The onus to prove LLMs are conscious is on you making the claim. And if you say we don’t even know what consciousness is, how can you then attribute to an entity? Definitionally and philosophically, humans are conscious (Descartes et al.) so need no proof themselves
- ninalanyon 2mo ago
  Consciousness is also not necessarily relevant. Once machines start to influence the design of new machines in ways that are hard to examine in detail they can gain capabilities that are unexpected and unwanted. Machines capable of this kind of influence and of concealing capabilities will naturally become more common simply through a combination of natural and artificial selection. No consciousness is required for such entities to become competitors. For an examination of the idea of intelligence without consciousness see Peter Watts' Blindsight.

I hadn't even considered it, and we're in a much bigger mess than I'd thought if people are seriously discussing the idea. People really don't understand these things.

dozerly 2mo ago

Nope, not at all. There are murmurings in HN of this topic, and HN is an extreme bubble when it comes to technical proficiency. It’s easy to forget just how untechnical 99% of people are.

watwut 2mo ago
I would not be shocked if tech bros were behind the idea in the first place.
- dozerly 1mo ago
  Any truly technical person cannot be behind this idea.

scarmig 2mo ago

No one understands these things, which is why considering machine consciousness as a possibility is entirely reasonable. People who have a shallow model of how they work ("it's just linear algebra!") betray a lack of understanding.

hypfer 2mo ago
What are you talking about. No. obviously it's not suddenly reasonable. I don't understand orbital mechanics, therefore, believing that the sun orbits the earth is entirely reasonable. Listen to yourself. __ Okay I've checked your comment history. Yea. Might be self-serving to argue for personhood of LLMs. Can we _please_ do something about this?
goatlover 2mo ago
I see no reason to seriously consider that current AI is in any way conscious. It's fun as thought experiment people like to play with. The technology is not some black box, it was designed by humans who understand it well enough to keep building and improving it.
- scarmig 2mo ago
  My argument isn't that current AI is definitively conscious or that it will be in the short term. It's that nobody has a cohesive theory of consciousness, and that we should therefore approach questions of what's conscious and what's not with humility. For LLMs in particular, it's notable that they both 1) originate from a lineage that attempted to model biological brains mathematically and 2) are the only other known entities in the universe able to reproduce many types of human intellectual labor. That is surprising and striking. Does that mean that they definitively share other traits with humans like consciousness? No, but it does make them one of the most interesting candidates, particularly when we have a very limited understanding of how humans themselves are conscious.
  - tambeb 2mo ago
    Yes, nobody has a cohesive theory of consciousness. At the same time I can say with 100% certainty that LLMs (or any current "AI") is in any way, shape, or form, conscious. Not even close. A decade or two ago it was the Internet that was a possible emerging consciousness.
    - scarmig 2mo ago
      Why? What makes you so absolutely certain? 100% is a lot, which implies you do have at least some privileged understanding of consciousness.
      - sph 2mo ago
        As usual, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The onus to prove LLMs are conscious is on you making the claim. And if you say we don’t even know what consciousness is, how can you then attribute to an entity? Definitionally and philosophically, humans are conscious (Descartes et al.) so need no proof themselves
ninalanyon 2mo ago
Consciousness is also not necessarily relevant. Once machines start to influence the design of new machines in ways that are hard to examine in detail they can gain capabilities that are unexpected and unwanted. Machines capable of this kind of influence and of concealing capabilities will naturally become more common simply through a combination of natural and artificial selection. No consciousness is required for such entities to become competitors. For an examination of the idea of intelligence without consciousness see Peter Watts' Blindsight.