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That is a completely unsupportable claim. For all we know they might already be, for a brief flash at least.
by sho 29d ago
That is a completely unsupportable claim. For all we know they might already be, for a brief flash at least.
- bee_rider 29d agoThey are made of sand. For all we know the sand was conscious before we smashed it up and arranged it into computer chips.
- sho 29d agoI'm not sure what point you are trying to make, if at all
- bee_rider 29d agoFor all we know LLMs might be conscious in the same way that any other inanimate object might be.
- sho 29d agoCare to supply your rigorous, formal definition of what animacy in an object is?
- bee_rider 29d agoNo, but we don’t need it, the comment works fine as: For all we know LLMs might be conscious in the same way that any other object might be. Sorry for the extra word. We can’t conclusively say anything is not conscious. But is there any reason to single out this apparent “brief flash” of potential consciousness?
- GPerson 29d agoYou’re going to pedantic our way into the end of humanity. Why were the computers of 2010 not conscious if the ones of today are? It’s absurd to assert substrate independence, which is the strongest possible assumption here. And it’s not the default most ethical stance to simply treat it as conscious because we do not know. That stance will lead to the end of all humanity. A far more reasonable assumption is consciousness does depend on substrate. We do not know which, and cannot know. But I am very confident we did not accidentally pick the right one. I am open to the idea of panpsychism, but we did not just accidentally build the correct mechanism form correlating the first person experience with the observable third person behaviors.
- sho 28d agoI don't know what you're talking about. "Substrate independence"? Huh? "we did not accidentally pick the right one"? Who or what is "we"? I'm not claiming panpsychism. I'm saying that when you run a rough simulation of something known to have an emergent internal property - ie, the human brain and consciousness - it's not completely outlandish to suggest that the emergent property might arise in the simulation as well. It's nothing to do with sand, it is the nature of the software being run, be it "on the metal" like us, or somewhat abstracted, like the LLMs. I don't think this quite reasonable proposition leads to the end of humanity or has anything to do with ethics, and nothing you've said really refutes it (and I am always grateful to be shown how I am wrong).
- GPerson 28d ago“Anything I’ve proposed” You’ve proposed nothing since in one comment you make it clear you don’t know that there is a distinct concept called consciousness which refers to a first person experience and awareness, and bizarrely propose that nobody knows about this concept even though there’s a massive history of people thinking about it quite clearly. It’s difficult to explain all this to someone who has never thought about it, but maybe after you’ve stopped seething over this you’ll decide to investigate it further and more honestly. You don’t even know the idea of substrate independence which is one of the first things you learn when learning about consciousness, so who are you to arrogantly pretend that nothing is known here? Your belief in this is almost certainly based on a false premise that everyone who thinks not too deeply falls into. Beyond this, read Jacob Tsimerman’s omnicide scenarios for a rough understanding of where ignorant perspectives on machine consciousness will lead.
- sho 28d agoI said machine consciousness might be possible. You said it will never happen. Pointing out that intelligence does not entail consciousness doesn’t establish that machines cannot be conscious. Nor does naming “substrate independence” refute its possibility: you need an argument that consciousness requires physical properties these systems cannot possess. You haven’t supplied one. When I said "we don't know what consciousness is", I didn't mean humans literally don't know what the experience of consciousness is like, or of its existence. I meant that we don't know by what mechanism the phenomenon arises. I know what is meant by substrate independence. I quoted it back to you because I didn't know why you were mentioning it; I still don't. And I have read Tsimerman’s paper when it came out. Curious, I went back and checked - it doesn't even mention consciousness. So no idea why you mentioned that, either. I think you're deliberately trying to waste my time, so I'm ending it here.
- aeve890 29d ago>That is a completely unsupportable claim >For all we know they might already be Oh the irony
- GPerson 29d agoThe other guy is right. They are as conscious as sand formed into any circuit board with electricity running across them. It is an insane mistake to conflate intelligence with consciousness. Substrate independence is a preposterous assumption.
- sho 28d agoPreposterous? Insane? My friend, we don't even know what consciousness is, or from what it arises in humans. It could be an emergent property of neural-network-shaped activity - in which case LLM software running on that "sand" is certainly eligible, at least in theory. These outraged denials you're spouting are based on nothing but emotion. You simply don't know - neither do I, neither does anyone. So stop acting like you do.
- GPerson 28d agoWe know that there is a concept corresponding to first person experience. A priori there is no reason that should be. Please think about this before dismissing it because it’s actually extremely important. What’s emotional is explaining to adults something that should be grasped by the age of 10, but we’re all going to need to understand this very soon.