3 ms·
If a LLM says "I am in pain", is it just stringing together words or is it feeling pain? Does pain exist for a being that never felt any kind of physical pain,
by Arodex 15d ago
If a LLM says "I am in pain", is it just stringing together words or is it feeling pain? Does pain exist for a being that never felt any kind of physical pain, never had any pain receptors?
There are humans who don't have any pain receptors because of genetic mutations. They cut themselves all the time, they bleed, they break bones and they don't seem distressed by it even on a purely mental, intellectual level.
- addag 15d agoI am not saying that everything that a LLM say is true (the human without pain receptors can also say "I have pain" without feeling any pain). Just that we cannot exclude that LLMs can have phenomenological consciousness by a simple argument of substrate. But similarly we cannot say for sure that they are conscious.
- jptlnk 15d agoGenuine counterpoint: If a human says "I am in pain", is it just stringing together words or is it feeling pain? If you take that seriously it's quite a tough question to unwind. See e.g. Dennett's heterophenomenology conversations.
- Arodex 15d agoWhat counterpoint is that? The human saying "I am in pain" may feel pain, or may not and be just stringing together words. The AI can only string together words. It has none of the organs to feel pain. It never had. It has always been code.
- krunck 15d agoThese humans without pain receptors can still suffer just as much as the rest of us.