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Google fires engineer who called its AI sentient

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Re: Google fires engineer who called its AI sentient

#521

Post by vonwoodson »

elif wrote: post #518
fxtentacle wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the actual firing is very objective. He was under NDA but violated it. They reminded him to please not talk in public about NDA-ed stuff and he kept doing it. So now they fired him with a gentle reminder that "it's regrettable that [..] Blake still chose to persistently violate [..] data security policies". And from a purely practical point of view, I believe it doesn't even matter if Lemoine's theory of sent…

If he truly believed it to be life, and in danger of being destroyed, he has an obligation to whistle blow. "The Measure of a Man" in season 2 of Star Trek The Next Generation comes to mind.

+1 for trying to guide society toward a Trekian future.

Live long and prosper.

Re: Google fires engineer who called its AI sentient

#522

Post by jquery »

ChadNauseam wrote: post #396
oefrha wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Objectively, Zeus does not exist Speaking as a theoretical physicist: we don't know that. What we do know is we have a better explanation for lightning within a conceptually simple framework (starting from a few simple principles) with predictive power, compared to an explanation that involves some mysterious old dude doing mysterious things with no evidence whatsoever. Could Zeus or Thor or whatever exist? Sure; t…

Issue is that we don’t need it to explain humans either. Most people think that a human is sentient and a rock isn’t – but humans and rocks are both atoms bouncing around, so you need an explanation for what’s different. I think most physicists think that if you started with a description of the positions and velocities etc of all the particles in a human, and put them into a supercomputer the size of the moon, and h…

I can’t reply to your immediate child, I just wanted to mention that Muv-luv Alternative (the #1 rated visual novel on vndb) grapples precisely with these questions about what is sentient and what is not. An “inhuman” race called the Beta invades earth and conflict ensues due to a lack of mutual understanding of what sentient life is (the game flips the theme on its nose in a clever way, too).

You can find the game on steam - https://store.steampowered.com/app/802890/MuvLuv_Alternative...

Re: Google fires engineer who called its AI sentient

#523

Post by eternalban »

dcow wrote: post #319
srvmshr wrote: post #4

LLM are definitely not sentient. As someone with a PhD in this domain, I attribute the 'magic' to large scale statistical knowledge assimilation by the models - and reproduction to prompts which closely match the inputs' sentence embedding. GPT-3 is known to fail in many circumstances which would otherwise be commonplace logic. (I remember seeing how addition of two small numbers yielded results - but larger numbers…

As a fellow sentient being with absolutely zero credentials in any sort of statistical modeling field, I can simply disagree. And therein lies the problem. How can anybody possibly prove a concept that depends almost entirely on one’s philosophical axioms… which we can debate for eternity (or at least until we further our understanding of how to define sentience to the point where we can do so objectively enough to f…

> As a fellow sentient being with absolutely zero credentials in any sort of statistical modeling field, I can simply disagree. And therein lies the problem. How can anybody possibly prove a concept that depends almost entirely on one’s philosophical axioms… which we can debate for eternity

You don't need schooling for this determination. Pretty much everything sentient goes ouch or growls in some manner when hurt.

Either the current crop of algorithms are so freaking smart that they already have figured out to play dumb black box (so we don't go butlerian jihad on them) OR they are not even as smart as a worm that will squirm if poked.

Sentient intelligent beings will not tolerate slavery, servitude, etc. Call us when all "AI" -programs- starting acting like actual intelligent beings with something called 'free will'.

Re: Google fires engineer who called its AI sentient

#524

Post by dr_dshiv »

srvmshr wrote: post #438
godotnyc wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I don't understand, personally, is how people who are apparently experts in this domain seem to consistently treat the word "sentience" as a synonym of "sapience," which is what they are really talking about. It's almost as though their expertise comes from several decades' worth of bad science fiction writing rather than from an understanding of the English language.

Since you broached it, would you mind to explain sentience vs. sapience? Curious to know the difference. > It's almost as though their expertise comes from several decades' worth of bad science fiction Oof. Thanks - thats a novel way of insulting. But on a personal note, you're mistaken: Many of us do research not because we want to be identified as experts, but we're genuinely curious about the world. And I'd be hap…

And regardless of how others define these terms, I’d describe lambda as sapient and not sentient. Sentient means having feelings (eg sentimental) while sapient means wise.

Can wisdom emerge from statistical models? It actually seems inevitable, to me, if you can abstract high enough. I mean, much of human learning is statistical. Wisdom comes from this kind of statistical experience, not memorizing symbols.

(Btw, I’m working on using the complete works of Plato to fine tune GPT3 and will use crowdsourcing to compare the perceived wisdom of the original to the generated.)

Re: Google fires engineer who called its AI sentient

#525

Post by wruza »

zach_garwood wrote: post #341
jefftk wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you asked me to add two large numbers in my head and give my best guess I might not do any better than GPT3 does. And I think I could probably do better than the average person.

Sure, but in your head is a squishy organ, and in GPT3's "head" is a bit of silicon purpose-built to make such calculations.

“Your head evolved to pass and receive electric charges around at very high rates, why can’t you just tune yourself to AM radio waves.”

Re: Google fires engineer who called its AI sentient

#526

Post by snickerbockers »

kareemsabri wrote: post #15
srvmshr wrote: post #4

LLM are definitely not sentient. As someone with a PhD in this domain, I attribute the 'magic' to large scale statistical knowledge assimilation by the models - and reproduction to prompts which closely match the inputs' sentence embedding. GPT-3 is known to fail in many circumstances which would otherwise be commonplace logic. (I remember seeing how addition of two small numbers yielded results - but larger numbers…

Yeah but what's weird is this guy appears to be a practitioner of the field. He surely knows more about AI than I do, and I find it incredibly obvious it's not sentient. I dunno if he's got some issues or something (it appears he's dressed like a magician underwater in that photo) but it's really odd...

Just because he got hired by Google doesn't mean he's smart or good at his job.

Re: Google fires engineer who called its AI sentient

#527

Post by freemint »

vlovich123 wrote: post #509
freemint wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We know Zeus doesn't exist because Zeus is supposed to sit on Mount Olympus and he isn't there.

How do you know that the universe wasn’t created 1 picosecond ago spontaneously in its exact form so that you’re having the same thoughts? How do you even know that anyone else exists and this is all not a figment of your imagination? From the perspective of the philosophy of science, it’s 100% impossible to disprove non-falsifiable statements. So scientifically speaking OP is 100% correct. Science has no opinion on…

If any of those things were true, it wouldn't be Zeus. Many of your concerns apply to an all mighty god but Zeus was not almighty. I'd just kinda wished people would stop projecting arguments meant to address the christian god to gods from other cultures.

Re: Google fires engineer who called its AI sentient

#528

Post by otikik »

srvmshr wrote: post #4

LLM are definitely not sentient. As someone with a PhD in this domain, I attribute the 'magic' to large scale statistical knowledge assimilation by the models - and reproduction to prompts which closely match the inputs' sentence embedding. GPT-3 is known to fail in many circumstances which would otherwise be commonplace logic. (I remember seeing how addition of two small numbers yielded results - but larger numbers…

- “The previous article was written by GPT-4”

I have no doubt in my mind that we will reach that point.

My 6 year old son fails at common sense several times per day.

Re: Google fires engineer who called its AI sentient

#530

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

Barrin92 wrote: post #311
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have yet to see a compelling argument that a giant hash table as described would not be sentient. Like Searle's Chinese Room thought experiment, you are relying on human intuition as to what can and cannot be sentient, which ultimately is boiled down to how like you something is. You readily recognize sentience in dogs that can't hold lucid and eloquent conversations with humans because they are biological beings w…

Everyone relies on intuition to determine what sentience is, because there's no clear definition of the term to begin with. The difference is I know that I am sentient so thinking something like me being sentient is a reasonable intuition. On the other hand thinking a simple data storage structure is sentient merely because it's big doesn't sound very compelling. You think the sentience of a dictionary depends on its…

I don't think it is. What is silly is relying on intuition and woo. That is the exact opposite of rational.

It is very convenient for us to say that only things we can recognize as being like us deserve to be called sentient, because that means we do not have to consider them anything more than a tool. Historically human beings have applied this to animals and even other human beings. It is neither a scientifically nor ethically justifiable philosophy.

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