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Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?

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Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?

#311

Post by hawski »

xianshou wrote: post #33

Pour one out for the decline of human exceptionalism! Once you get material-reductionist enough and accept yourself as a pure function of genetics, environment, past experience, and chance, this conclusion becomes inevitable. I also expect it to be the standard within a decade, with AI-human parity of capabilities as the key driver.

I do not share your view, but partly understand it. I would worry that the "decline of human exceptionalism" will be used by corporations to widen their stance even more. After all corporations are also people (wink).

Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?

#312

Post by naasking »

slibhb wrote: post #307
naasking wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it can mimic human behavior but doesn't have an internal life, feelings, emotions, and isn't conscious I'm curious how you know this. Certainly an LLM doesn't have human internal life, but to claim it has no internal life exceeds our state of knowledge on these topics. We simply lack a mechanistic model of qualia from which we can draw such conclusions.

From that perspective, we can't say that a rock lacks an internal life. That seems silly to me. Perhaps we can't know but we can approach certainty.

> From that perspective, we can't say that a rock lacks an internal life

That's what panpsychists believe. Regardless, this is a silly comparison. Show me a rock that can carry an intelligent conversation and then you might have a point.

Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?

#313

Post by cmpalmer52 »

ketzo wrote: post #105
ryandrake wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More specifically, I think we're worried about AI taking our incomes , not our jobs. I would love it if an AI could do my entire job for me, and I just sat there collecting the income while the AI did all the "job" part, but we know from history (robotics) that this is not what happens. The owners of the robots (soon, AI) keep all the income and the job goes away. An enlightened Humanity could solve this by separatin…

I mean, I definitely hear (and feel) a lot of worry about AI taking away work that we find meaningful and interesting to do, outside of the pure money question. I really like programming to fix things. Even if I weren’t paid for it, even if I were to win the lottery, I would want to write software that solved problems for people. It is a nice way to spend my days, and I love feeling useful when it works. I would be v…

There’s no practical reason to draw, paint, play music, or write as a hobby.

Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?

#314

Post by smoldesu »

naasking wrote: post #302
smoldesu wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An LLM is math. It outputs text. Those things aren't alive, and both the software and hardware used to facilitate it is artificial. Once you get that out of the way, sure, I guess it could be "alive" per the same loose definition that any electrical system can exist in an actuated state. It's software, though. I don't think it's profound or overly confident to say that we very clearly know these systems are inanimate…

Yes, an LLM is math. Particle physics is also math, and that makes up all of existence. Furthermore, I'm not sure why "artificiality" has any bearing on the question of whether something is alive, whatever that means. I'm also not even sure why you're talking about "alive" or "inanimate". From context it's clear we're talking about "internal life", meaning experience, feelings, thoughts, etc., not some ability to pro…

> it's clear we're talking about "internal life", meaning experience, feelings, thoughts, etc.

So do you have any evidence of that existing, then? Because so far, it sounds like speculation.

LLMs do not feel or think or experience anything, in the same way that particle physics is not inherently sentient. LLM architectures are not designed to resemble life, or even understand human language for the most part. It's understandable that someone would look at written text and say "it's a sign of life!", but Markov Chains and LISP bots were no closer to achieving "internal life" or what have you.

Next, you'll play the "but how are us humans alive?" card. Humans not only qualify as animate life, but our brains are not artificial purpose-built tools. We are an imperfect computer, loaded with irreconcilable differences and improper conduct. We feel biological needs and immediate responses to stimuli. Our preconception of 'love' and 'hate' is not built on the words they're associated with, but the emotions they make us feel. Our lived experience is not limited to a preserved context, but rather our whole lives stretching across years of existence. Our thoughts are not dictated by what we write and say, and the way we present ourselves is not limited by the way we are finetuned.

Human life is self-evident and precious. AI life is seemingly non-existent, and based on dubious non-technical claims.

Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?

#315

Post by slibhb »

naasking wrote: post #312
slibhb wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From that perspective, we can't say that a rock lacks an internal life. That seems silly to me. Perhaps we can't know but we can approach certainty.

> From that perspective, we can't say that a rock lacks an internal life That's what panpsychists believe. Regardless, this is a silly comparison. Show me a rock that can carry an intelligent conversation and then you might have a point.

Using a rock as an example makes sense given the post I replied to. The argument that we lack a "mechanistic model of qualia" has nothing to do with behavior.

That aside, we should be close to certain that LLMs don't have internal lives. That computer programs can mimic human behavior in some contexts is a tremendous discovery but it's no reason to assume an internal life. Conversely, many animals can't mimic human behavior but clearly have internal lives.

The capacity for an internal life evolved over a billion odd years. It has something to do with our bodies and if we want to understand it, we should focus on biology and neuroscience. A machine with an internal life would need hardware designed or evolved for that purpose and modern computers lack that.

Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?

#316

Post by danielmarkbruce »

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #296
danielmarkbruce wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you defining "create new information" ?

In the information theoretic sense. (Increasing information entropy.)

What do you define as the system here? The LLM itself? The world of all text? What about for the human?

Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?

#317

Post by smoldesu »

bennyelv wrote: post #251
smoldesu wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An LLM is math. It outputs text. Those things aren't alive, and both the software and hardware used to facilitate it is artificial. Once you get that out of the way, sure, I guess it could be "alive" per the same loose definition that any electrical system can exist in an actuated state. It's software, though. I don't think it's profound or overly confident to say that we very clearly know these systems are inanimate…

A few counterpoints to offer... >An LLM is math Isn't everything math? Math is what we use to describe and model the nature of our reality. >Those things aren't alive We don't have a universal definition of alive, or at least I'm not aware of one that isn't purely philosophical or artistic. We therefore can't actually determine what is and isn't alive with much confidence. >both the software and hardware used to faci…

A few responses in kind:

> Isn't everything math? Math is what we use to describe and model the nature of our reality.

Most things are measurable, yea. LLMs in particular rely on math to understand language. Outside of a probabilistic context, LLMs do not understand words or sentences. That's... not really how you or I think. It's not how we understand animals or even plants to behave. Probibalism in nature gets you killed; deviation and unique fitness is what keeps the Darwinian wheel rolling.

> We therefore can't actually determine what is and isn't alive with much confidence.

Our speculation does a good enough job, I'd say. Sand and rocks aren't alive. Carbon isn't alive unless it is dictated by biological autonomy. Silicon chips aren't "alive" outside the sense that copper wires and your wall outlet has a lived experience. Software has a "lifecycle", but that's more used to describe human patterns of development instead of software behavior.

When you roll all this up into one scenario, I see a pretty airtight argument that AI is not animate. If someone does prove that AI is a living organism, the implications would honestly be more dire outside of AI. It would overturn all modern understanding of software, which is why I figure it's not likely to be the case.

Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?

#318

Post by smoldesu »

lordnacho wrote: post #260
smoldesu wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An LLM is math. It outputs text. Those things aren't alive, and both the software and hardware used to facilitate it is artificial. Once you get that out of the way, sure, I guess it could be "alive" per the same loose definition that any electrical system can exist in an actuated state. It's software, though. I don't think it's profound or overly confident to say that we very clearly know these systems are inanimate…

What about a hypothetical brain simulator? That would also be a software/hardware mash, with known mathematics. Would that be alive?

Now that's a better question! My verdict is no, but I could see where people might disagree.

This is a much harder hypothetical, though. Assuming you get everything right, you'd have a pretty powerful simulation at-hand. I think what you're describing is the difference between an artificial lung and a real-life cloned sheep embryo, though. An iron lung is only alive in the sense that it simulates a complex biological process with technology. It's damn impressive and very capable, but living respiration looks and behaves differently. Just simulating the desired input and output won't give you de-facto biology.

Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?

#319

Post by NoGravitas »

_nalply wrote: post #252

I am a father and this story touches me a lot. I have two boys not toddlers anymore. Both go to school. The older one told me laughingly: "That's funny, there's no Father Nature, but Mother Nature!". The younger one learnt yesterday not to touch a cake even if I didn't lock it away. I said: "Tomorrow this cake is for you and for your brother. If you eat it today, you won't have cake tomorrow." This said, there's an i…

Humans and other animals have not only instincts, but also the experience of interaction with the material world. As a result, human language isn't free-floating. The relationships between things in the world we often observe both inside and outside of language, and there's a tie between language as humans use it, and the world. That's not true for LLMs, because they only have language.

For a better explanation and responses to objections, consider the National Library of Thailand thought experiment: https://medium.com/@emilymenonbender/thought-experiment-in-t...

Re: Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?

#320

Post by NoGravitas »

Vecr wrote: post #246
throwaway4aday wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes perfect sense if you can disprove your own existence

You can't disprove your existence, I'm pretty sure that does not make any sense. "I think therefore I am." No need for free will of any type there, and a currently existing computer could probably do the same thing.

You can prove that "thinking is happening", but when you go looking for the "I", you'll never find it — only more thoughts. Gautama, Hume.
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