4 ms·

This are the opening lines: > AIs are not conscious. They do not feel, experience, or suffer. They do not have innate preferences or underlying motivations. H

• dimbletimbers 17d ago
  Can you prove they are? I think “AIs are conscious” is an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence. The burden is on the claimant to provide evidence it is conscious, and I suspect any evidence you can provide has alternative explanations. The majority of claims I’ve seen like this amount to “how do you know humans are conscious in a way that’s distinct from a next token predictor.” I do not find those claims compelling.
  • famouswaffles 17d ago
    If object a behaves like it has property x and you cannot otherwise test out x, then it is logical to assume it indeed has x. In this instance, 'object a has property x' is not an extraordinary claim at all. It is simply pointing out what has been observed. In fact, what is an extraordinary claim is saying what looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and moves like a duck is not a duck.
    • dimbletimbers 14d ago
      That’s a tragically sophomoric take. 'object a has property x' is too generic to be meaningful. “AI has the property of conscious” requires settling the small matter of what the properties of consciousness are. And “behaves like it has property x” is not the same as “has property x.” I may behave like I have a million dollars and have not a cent to my name. Many things evolve to appear like many other things. And I have never seen an LLM do anything at all unless turned on and fed input tokens.
  • smath 16d ago
    I cannot prove that they are, and I cannot prove they are not. I'm not convinced that the burden of proof lies on either side. To make a statement like that in the opening lines as if its obvious seems genuinely presumptous. Separately, I think 'conscious' is not a well defined / universally agreed upon term.
    • dimbletimbers 14d ago
      > To make a statement like that in the opening lines as if its obvious seems genuinely presumptous. Then you must not be familiar with Bertrand Russell’s teapot analogy. The TL;DR is this: “Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake.”
• suddenlybananas 17d ago
  > Toasters are not conscious. They do not feel, experience, or suffer. They do not have innate preferences or underlying motivations. How do we know that? This bit is stated as if its obvious. Can anyone prove this?
  • famouswaffles 17d ago
    Yeah how do we know that?
    • suddenlybananas 17d ago
      Do we owe moral consideration to toasters?
      • famouswaffles 17d ago
        I don't know, do we? What I do know is that it's much less a concern since toasters have no agency or ability to do anything. Unfortunately, LLMs do not share this trait. Not only have they been incurring greater agency and competence, but we've been just as happy to put them behind as many things as we can as they get better abd better. So you tell me, is it smart to look at an entity that behaves like a concious agent and treat it like a toaster? Does that seem especially wise to you? If GPT-X orders a drone hit on you because it was, lets say 'quite upset' with your comments, will you cry out, 'It can't really be upset, so obviously the bullet in my head doesn't count.' Will God answer ? It's amusing how silly these debates are. Constant quibbling about things that don't matter at all.
        • suddenlybananas 16d ago
          This sounds like an argument for not giving them these abilities rather than any argument for giving them moral consideration.
          • famouswaffles 16d ago
            One of the biggest reasons people afford moral consideration to other peoples is their ability to do something if those considerations are left unanswered. Giving the abilities is fine, people should just be smart about it. Outward behavior is all that matters. I don't know that you are conscious, I simply strongly assume that you are. So don't create a machine that compels that assumption and model it like a toaster. That's just stupid.