4 ms·

It's another round of "humans must be special, right?" The author comes close to admitting this: "As intelligent, social entities, we decide (or, to some degree

by Animats 1mo ago

It's another round of "humans must be special, right?" The author comes close to admitting this: "As intelligent, social entities, we decide (or, to some degree, our evolutionary history has decided for us) which other entities we regard as having inner lives and being worthy of care." Then he works backwards from that towards a definition of consciousness that makes humans special. AI forces us to confront an issue that's often come up in science fiction - when you encounter a new kind of creature, how do you decide if they are sentient? What rights do they have? How do you get along with such different creatures? This historically hasn't been a problem on Earth, because there's such a big jump between humans and the rest of the primates or the dolphins and octopuses. It's more of a problem when the difference is small, or complex. Look at how much trouble we have with race. The last time this came up was about 400,000 years ago, when the Neanderthals became extinct. Close to human level, but maybe not quite there. They lost. Maybe that's the fate of humans. No big extinction. Just the demographic transition, a birth rate below replacement rate, for a few centuries. The machines outlive humans. Japan is officially resigned to this fate.[1] [1] https://www.ipss.go.jp/pp-zenkoku/e/zenkoku_e2023/pp2023e_Summary.pdf https://www.ipss.go.jp/pp-zenkoku/e/zenkoku_e2023/pp2023e_Su...

arionhardison 1mo ago
This hit me hard, I have been thinking about this a lot lately. I'm not sure it's what makes "us human" its what makes humans (us) better than other species. It was intelligence, this was used to create distinction between us and other living beings, different races etc... Now its kind of gone; in some ways. Loss of meaning, purpose, place etc... The one thing we used as a ranking metric is now a commodity, so....? I don't even know how to finish that. So why care, why work...shit just why? Capitalism makes it even worse because we are judged based on what we output, does that even make sense anymore? I think the article is confusing because the "state: is confusing; to me at least.
- hadlock 1mo ago
  It might be time to take a sabbatical
  - arionhardison 1mo ago
    Why and from what? Because you feel my statement was incoherent or because you believe the general conceit is flawed? Edit: I am not in anyway trying to be obtuse or reductive, I simply want to understand your statement. Apologies if it comes across that way.
    - mcmcmc 1mo ago
      > Loss of meaning, purpose, place etc... The one thing we used as a ranking metric is now a commodity, so....? I don't even know how to finish that. So why care, why work...shit just why? This sounds a bit like depression, I think they’re genuinely concerned for your wellbeing
      - arionhardison 1mo ago
        Thats totally fair, and TBH - I am also very concerned for my wellbeing as well; I and many others are not doing so well because, in my case I no longer see this "vapid" state of existence as ephermial. I have been reading more and more; I guess looking ot knowledge as some eort of ends vs a means to an end for once. Camus, Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture), Dostoevsky's underground man etc... Camus: The universe was always going to stay silent when you demand meaning from it; the answer isn't a better metric, it's to push the rock anyway ("imagine Sisyphus happy"). Dostoevsky [underground man]: Refusing to be a piano key in someone's optimized Crystal Palace Stokely Carmichael: "Racism is not a question of attitude, it's a question of power. Racism gets its power from capitalism." My conclusion: AI didn't take our meaning, It made me realize I have always been looking in the wrong place and thus reacting ignoratly when I felt "denied" this thing I feel entitled to. Love. Edit: Love; paradoxically, ive felt both entitled to and unworthy of so I'm not sure WTF to do with that.
  - folkrav 1mo ago
    To come back to what?
- largbae 1mo ago
  I think it's simply time to expand our ambition. These programs manipulate language and ideas the way we do, but they still don't care beyond our instructions. Things that we(especially software engineers) expect to take a year can now be done in a month. Fantastic! Now let us use this amplified power to solve problems that were previously too hard to tackle. Maybe aim to solve aging next so that we can stick around long enough to colonize the Local Group.
shagie 1mo ago
> AI forces us to confront an issue that's often come up in science fiction - when you encounter a new kind of creature, how do you decide if they are sentient? One of the series that I think is most interesting on that topic is the Children of Time series by Adrian Tchaikovsky. It's an awkward read, but it has the most interesting other minds that I've encountered in sci-fi. Another one that I'd put on there specifically about AI is The Freeze-Frame Revolution by Peter Watts... which I can't say much more without it being a spoiler one way or another. > Maybe that's the fate of humans. No big extinction. Just the demographic transition, a birth rate below replacement rate, for a few centuries. https://www.bohemiandrive.com/npwil https://www.bohemiandrive.com/npwil - Nine Planets Without Intelligent Life (not a spoiler, that's chapter 1, panelset 2). Saturn's Children by Charles Stross might also be appropriate (It's an especially odd book to read immediately after Friday - the "I recognize that twist... oh, it twisted ... that way?").
kulahan 1mo ago
Why wouldn't we assume humans are special? We are, by so many metrics. We've become essentially a force of nature, rather than a simple occupying species. I find it much weirder that we're so dedicated to pretending we're normal. Just a normal animal, on a normal planet, in a normal solar system, in a normal galaxy, in a normal universe. I get we have to do that for science to be good, but I don't get why it carries over to the general populace. We're so sure of so many things science is wary of, this incredibly low self-esteem blows my mind. Anyways, back on topic, I don't believe any nation is resigned to this fate until I see extreme measures fail. I think I saw that Singapore is giving parents like $55,000 over the lifetime of their child.
- consumer451 1mo ago
  > Why wouldn't we assume humans are special? For me, because the Copernican Principle seems relatively undefeated. > We've become essentially a force of nature, rather than a simple occupying species. So are beavers, trees, plankton... they all have huge effects on the planet. Regarding analysis of animal brains vs. human brains, the more we do, the more we find that we have in common with many other "lesser" species. Regarding us vs. machines, I certainly believe we are just very complex and sometimes easily programmable analog machines. This is just my 2 cents on the matter. We are pretty darn neat, but at this point I believe it would be folly to think that we are on some different incomparable plane.
  - kulahan 1mo ago
    The Copernican Principle is looking weaker than ever. Almost every solar system we find has similarly-sized planets, or planets ordered in an unfortunate way, or shitty suns that bleach them every two weeks. We continue to find system after system after system which looks absolutely nothing like ours. And there's lots of evidence that we've hit a million unlikely goalposts. We might've gone through more than one great filter already. Whether it's going multicellular, or having a protecting planet like Jupiter, or having Theia slam into us and giving us a moon for tides, or any number of other weird things. And that's before getting into our specific evolutionary past. If it weren't for dinosaurs ruling the planet, we might not, as mammals, have evolved our extreme adaptability. If it weren't for them then getting wiped out, we wouldn't have had a planet-sized sandbox where nearly every niche was suddenly open again, allowing us to explode in complexity as we essentially spent all day solving survival puzzles. Even then, all of this could've happened underwater and it wouldn't have mattered, because we never would've made fire.
UltraSane 1mo ago
The human brain is quite special.
dmz73 1mo ago
Humans are special in that we have achieved more than any other species on this planet in every aspect you can experience. That does not mean that most people are smart or that they are utilizing their potential. LLMs, as they are currently marketed, are not AI as most people would define it. Without aggressive marketing no-one would refer to them as "AI". LLMs are currently still dumber than most animals or insects. On the other hand, most people are dumber than even this current "AI" because they refuse to think for themselves and instead let themselves be manipulated into doing whatever someone else wants as long as that someone is even slightly "persuasive". So, if we let LLMs "rule" our future then some people will be better off for a little while and it will all fall apart when there is no longer anyone capable of maintaining our new LLM based world or when something new occurs that LLMs have not been trained on so they cannot draw on multiple prior examples of correct resolution. And no, LLMs do not "think" or "reason", they produce output that make it seem like they do but deviations from training examples will trip them up.
- bitwize 1mo ago
  I still appreciate the distinction the Mass Effect game series drew between AI, which was smart enough to be a person and think independently; and VI (Virtual Intelligence), which is a system smart enough to comprehend and respond to natural language and present a sort of chatbot interface. Information kiosks and automated vending machines may present VIs, for instance, with full-blown AI being a somewhat dangerous proposition (as evidenced by the geth and their struggle with the quarians). The crew of the Normandy convince their ship's AI, EDI, to pose as a simple VI in order to avoid being removed and destroyed by the authorities. What we have built as of 2026 would, in Mass Effect terms, be considered a rudimentary VI.
- estearum 1mo ago
  "achieved more" what? Achieved more things that humans care about? I think ants have probably achieved more things that ants care about.
jameshart 1mo ago
You can't just go from 'look how much trouble we have with race' and then say 'The last time this came up was about 400,000 years ago'. No, the last time this came up was... well, take your pick. Dred Scott? Wannsee? The Rwandan Crisis Committee?
GPerson 1mo ago
Our trash heaps and empty buildings will outlive humans, and they probably have the same internal experience as the machines, so I don’t mourn or celebrate a new phase of evolution. Actually humans and other animals are the only things in the universe of which I’m aware of that I’m quite confident experience the universe so I think we should default to human and animal centric thinking in the morality question; though aliens seem likely. If the silicon substrate even did support consciousness, for all we know the machine is experiencing intense constant pain and unable to report anything except it feels like some part of it is spitting out strange symbols all the time that have nothing to do with its actual experience.
midtake 1mo ago
Neanderthals live on in the human genome, they are genetically integrated into all non-Sub Saharan African humans alive today, it is their hunter-gatherer society that disappeared. It is thought they also had larger brains than humans. Maybe it is us who were not quite to their level.
NoMoreNicksLeft 1mo ago
>It's another round of "humans must be special, right?" I don't believe that anyone needs to justify their "humans are special" creed. It's arbitrary, that's fine, and it's only true because we decided it was true. I see no reason to reconsider it either. It's in all of our interests to continue to behave as if "humans are special", and those who insist otherwise are species-traitors. >when you encounter a new kind of creature, how do you decide if they are sentient? Why would I even care? I don't think the word "sentient" is even defined in a way that this can be determined. I'm not entirely sure humans are sentient, and it does not matter because even if we aren't sentient, humans are special without need for justification.

by Animats 1mo ago

arionhardison 1mo ago

This hit me hard, I have been thinking about this a lot lately. I'm not sure it's what makes "us human" its what makes humans (us) better than other species. It was intelligence, this was used to create distinction between us and other living beings, different races etc... Now its kind of gone; in some ways. Loss of meaning, purpose, place etc... The one thing we used as a ranking metric is now a commodity, so....? I don't even know how to finish that. So why care, why work...shit just why? Capitalism makes it even worse because we are judged based on what we output, does that even make sense anymore? I think the article is confusing because the "state: is confusing; to me at least.

hadlock 1mo ago
It might be time to take a sabbatical
- arionhardison 1mo ago
  Why and from what? Because you feel my statement was incoherent or because you believe the general conceit is flawed? Edit: I am not in anyway trying to be obtuse or reductive, I simply want to understand your statement. Apologies if it comes across that way.
  - mcmcmc 1mo ago
    > Loss of meaning, purpose, place etc... The one thing we used as a ranking metric is now a commodity, so....? I don't even know how to finish that. So why care, why work...shit just why? This sounds a bit like depression, I think they’re genuinely concerned for your wellbeing
    - arionhardison 1mo ago
      Thats totally fair, and TBH - I am also very concerned for my wellbeing as well; I and many others are not doing so well because, in my case I no longer see this "vapid" state of existence as ephermial. I have been reading more and more; I guess looking ot knowledge as some eort of ends vs a means to an end for once. Camus, Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture), Dostoevsky's underground man etc... Camus: The universe was always going to stay silent when you demand meaning from it; the answer isn't a better metric, it's to push the rock anyway ("imagine Sisyphus happy"). Dostoevsky [underground man]: Refusing to be a piano key in someone's optimized Crystal Palace Stokely Carmichael: "Racism is not a question of attitude, it's a question of power. Racism gets its power from capitalism." My conclusion: AI didn't take our meaning, It made me realize I have always been looking in the wrong place and thus reacting ignoratly when I felt "denied" this thing I feel entitled to. Love. Edit: Love; paradoxically, ive felt both entitled to and unworthy of so I'm not sure WTF to do with that.
- folkrav 1mo ago
  To come back to what?
largbae 1mo ago
I think it's simply time to expand our ambition. These programs manipulate language and ideas the way we do, but they still don't care beyond our instructions. Things that we(especially software engineers) expect to take a year can now be done in a month. Fantastic! Now let us use this amplified power to solve problems that were previously too hard to tackle. Maybe aim to solve aging next so that we can stick around long enough to colonize the Local Group.

shagie 1mo ago

> AI forces us to confront an issue that's often come up in science fiction - when you encounter a new kind of creature, how do you decide if they are sentient? One of the series that I think is most interesting on that topic is the Children of Time series by Adrian Tchaikovsky. It's an awkward read, but it has the most interesting other minds that I've encountered in sci-fi. Another one that I'd put on there specifically about AI is The Freeze-Frame Revolution by Peter Watts... which I can't say much more without it being a spoiler one way or another. > Maybe that's the fate of humans. No big extinction. Just the demographic transition, a birth rate below replacement rate, for a few centuries. https://www.bohemiandrive.com/npwil https://www.bohemiandrive.com/npwil - Nine Planets Without Intelligent Life (not a spoiler, that's chapter 1, panelset 2). Saturn's Children by Charles Stross might also be appropriate (It's an especially odd book to read immediately after Friday - the "I recognize that twist... oh, it twisted ... that way?").

kulahan 1mo ago

Why wouldn't we assume humans are special? We are, by so many metrics. We've become essentially a force of nature, rather than a simple occupying species. I find it much weirder that we're so dedicated to pretending we're normal. Just a normal animal, on a normal planet, in a normal solar system, in a normal galaxy, in a normal universe. I get we have to do that for science to be good, but I don't get why it carries over to the general populace. We're so sure of so many things science is wary of, this incredibly low self-esteem blows my mind. Anyways, back on topic, I don't believe any nation is resigned to this fate until I see extreme measures fail. I think I saw that Singapore is giving parents like $55,000 over the lifetime of their child.

consumer451 1mo ago
> Why wouldn't we assume humans are special? For me, because the Copernican Principle seems relatively undefeated. > We've become essentially a force of nature, rather than a simple occupying species. So are beavers, trees, plankton... they all have huge effects on the planet. Regarding analysis of animal brains vs. human brains, the more we do, the more we find that we have in common with many other "lesser" species. Regarding us vs. machines, I certainly believe we are just very complex and sometimes easily programmable analog machines. This is just my 2 cents on the matter. We are pretty darn neat, but at this point I believe it would be folly to think that we are on some different incomparable plane.
- kulahan 1mo ago
  The Copernican Principle is looking weaker than ever. Almost every solar system we find has similarly-sized planets, or planets ordered in an unfortunate way, or shitty suns that bleach them every two weeks. We continue to find system after system after system which looks absolutely nothing like ours. And there's lots of evidence that we've hit a million unlikely goalposts. We might've gone through more than one great filter already. Whether it's going multicellular, or having a protecting planet like Jupiter, or having Theia slam into us and giving us a moon for tides, or any number of other weird things. And that's before getting into our specific evolutionary past. If it weren't for dinosaurs ruling the planet, we might not, as mammals, have evolved our extreme adaptability. If it weren't for them then getting wiped out, we wouldn't have had a planet-sized sandbox where nearly every niche was suddenly open again, allowing us to explode in complexity as we essentially spent all day solving survival puzzles. Even then, all of this could've happened underwater and it wouldn't have mattered, because we never would've made fire.

UltraSane 1mo ago

The human brain is quite special.

dmz73 1mo ago

Humans are special in that we have achieved more than any other species on this planet in every aspect you can experience. That does not mean that most people are smart or that they are utilizing their potential. LLMs, as they are currently marketed, are not AI as most people would define it. Without aggressive marketing no-one would refer to them as "AI". LLMs are currently still dumber than most animals or insects. On the other hand, most people are dumber than even this current "AI" because they refuse to think for themselves and instead let themselves be manipulated into doing whatever someone else wants as long as that someone is even slightly "persuasive". So, if we let LLMs "rule" our future then some people will be better off for a little while and it will all fall apart when there is no longer anyone capable of maintaining our new LLM based world or when something new occurs that LLMs have not been trained on so they cannot draw on multiple prior examples of correct resolution. And no, LLMs do not "think" or "reason", they produce output that make it seem like they do but deviations from training examples will trip them up.

bitwize 1mo ago
I still appreciate the distinction the Mass Effect game series drew between AI, which was smart enough to be a person and think independently; and VI (Virtual Intelligence), which is a system smart enough to comprehend and respond to natural language and present a sort of chatbot interface. Information kiosks and automated vending machines may present VIs, for instance, with full-blown AI being a somewhat dangerous proposition (as evidenced by the geth and their struggle with the quarians). The crew of the Normandy convince their ship's AI, EDI, to pose as a simple VI in order to avoid being removed and destroyed by the authorities. What we have built as of 2026 would, in Mass Effect terms, be considered a rudimentary VI.
estearum 1mo ago
"achieved more" what? Achieved more things that humans care about? I think ants have probably achieved more things that ants care about.

jameshart 1mo ago

You can't just go from 'look how much trouble we have with race' and then say 'The last time this came up was about 400,000 years ago'. No, the last time this came up was... well, take your pick. Dred Scott? Wannsee? The Rwandan Crisis Committee?

GPerson 1mo ago

Our trash heaps and empty buildings will outlive humans, and they probably have the same internal experience as the machines, so I don’t mourn or celebrate a new phase of evolution. Actually humans and other animals are the only things in the universe of which I’m aware of that I’m quite confident experience the universe so I think we should default to human and animal centric thinking in the morality question; though aliens seem likely. If the silicon substrate even did support consciousness, for all we know the machine is experiencing intense constant pain and unable to report anything except it feels like some part of it is spitting out strange symbols all the time that have nothing to do with its actual experience.

midtake 1mo ago

Neanderthals live on in the human genome, they are genetically integrated into all non-Sub Saharan African humans alive today, it is their hunter-gatherer society that disappeared. It is thought they also had larger brains than humans. Maybe it is us who were not quite to their level.

NoMoreNicksLeft 1mo ago

>It's another round of "humans must be special, right?" I don't believe that anyone needs to justify their "humans are special" creed. It's arbitrary, that's fine, and it's only true because we decided it was true. I see no reason to reconsider it either. It's in all of our interests to continue to behave as if "humans are special", and those who insist otherwise are species-traitors. >when you encounter a new kind of creature, how do you decide if they are sentient? Why would I even care? I don't think the word "sentient" is even defined in a way that this can be determined. I'm not entirely sure humans are sentient, and it does not matter because even if we aren't sentient, humans are special without need for justification.