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Three Inverse Laws of AI

susam.net

121–130 of 388 posts

Re: Three Inverse Laws of AI

#121

Anthropomorphizing is likely a mistake, but Daniel Dennett’s idea that the most straightforward (possibly only practical) way to create the external appearance of consciousness is a real internal consciousness does float around in my thoughts. I haven’t yet seen any convincing appearance of one in an LLM, but I think if skeptical people don’t keep an eye out for the signs, we may be the last to see it. He also wrote…

I don't really understand the argument for these things being conscious. There's no loop or feedback cycle to it. If it's not handling a request it's inert.

Re: Three Inverse Laws of AI

#122

> Humans must not anthropomorphise AI systems. Can someone explain why this is a bad thing, while at the same time it's a good thing to say stuff like "put a computer to sleep", "hibernate", "killing" processes, processes having "child" processes, "reaping", "what does the error say ?", "touch", etc? To me that's just language, and humans just using casual language.

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Re: Three Inverse Laws of AI

#123
post #93
post #6

I strongly disagree with this framing. It's patently insane to demand that humans alter their behavior to accommodate the foibles of mere machines, and it simply won't work in the majority of cases. Humans WILL anthropomorphize the AI, humans WILL blindly trust their outputs, and humans WILL defer responsibility to them. Asimov's laws of robotics are flawed too, of course. There is no finite set of rules that can con…

I find your critique very interesting from a perspective-angle: why are you using words like "accommodate," and "foibles," for LLMs? It's not humanoid or sentient: it's a cleverly-designed software tool, not intelligence. It's not insane at all for humans to alter their behavior with a tool: you grip a hammer or a gun a certain way because you learned not to hold it backwards. If you observe a child playing with a se…

> I find your critique very interesting from a perspective-angle: why are you using words like "accommodate," and "foibles," for LLMs? It's not humanoid or sentient: it's a cleverly-designed software tool, not intelligence.

Neither of those words imply consciousness, though. Swords have foibles, you can accommodate for the weather, but I don't think swords or the weather are conscious, sentient, humanoid, or intelligent.

Re: Three Inverse Laws of AI

#124
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LLM's capturing intent is a capabilities-level discussion, it is verifiable, and is clear just via a conversation with Claude or Chatgpt. Whether they have emotions, an internal life or whatever is an unfalsifiable claim and has nothing to do with capabilities. I'm not sure why you think the claim that they can capture intent implies they have emotions, it's simply a matter of semantic comprehension which is tied to…

If it is verifiable, please show us. What if clear to you reeks delusion to me.

Look at any recent CoT output where the model is trying to infer from an underspecified prompt what the user wants or means.

It is generally the first thing they do — try to figure out what did you mean with this prompt. When they can’t infer your intent, good models ask follow-on questions to clarify.

I am wondering if this is a semantics issue as this is an established are of research, eg https://arxiv.org/pdf/2501.10871

Re: Three Inverse Laws of AI

#125
post #73

With regard to my personal use of LLMs, I strongly agree with this framing. But to each point: Anthropomorphism: As we are all aware, providers are incentivized to post-train anthropomorphic behavior in their models - it increases engagement. My regret is that instructing a model at prompt time to "reduce all niceties and speak plainly" probably reduces overall task efficacy since we are leaving their training space.…

> Yes, the AI may have produced the recommendation but a human decided to follow it, so that human must be held accountable

It is common and a mistake IMO to rely on the AI as the sole source for answers to follow-up questions. Better verification would have humans sign off on the veracity of fundamental assumptions. But where does this live? Can an AI model be trusted to rely on previous corrections? This seems impossible or possibly adversarial in a public cloud.

Re: Three Inverse Laws of AI

#126
post #62
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article offers practical advice to go along with this framing, like configuring AI services to write/speak in a more robotic tone. I think that's a decent path to try.

This is actually one of the things that made LLMs more usable for me. The default tone and style of writing they tend to use is nauseatingly annoying and buries information in prose that sounds like a corporate presentation.

In chatgpt, I start every session with "Caveman mode:". Works at the moment.

Re: Three Inverse Laws of AI

#127
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LLM's now can capture intent. I think the issue now is that the full landscape of human values never resolves cleanly when mapped from the things we state in writing as being human values. Asimov tried to capture this too, as in, if a robot was tasked with "always protect human life", would it necessarily avoid killing at all costs? What if killing someone would save the lives of 2 others? The infinite array of micro…

“LLMs can capture intent now” reads to me the same as: AI has emotions now, my AI girlfriend told me so. I don’t discredit you as a person or a professional, but we meatbags are looking for sentience in things which don’t have it, thats why we anthropomorphise things constantly, even as children. We are easily fooled and misled.

This lack of understanding is a you problem, not a them problem. Your definitions for these terms are too imprecise.

Re: Three Inverse Laws of AI

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's patently insane to demand that humans alter their behavior to accommodate the foibles of mere machines Talking to chatbots is like taking a placebo pill for a condition. You know it's just sugar, but it creates a measurable psychosomatic effect nonetheless. Even if you know there's no person on the other end, the conversation still causes you to functionally relate as if there is. So this isn't "accommodating…

> That uncanny valley is there for a reason: to protect us from inferring agency You’re committing a much older but related sin here: assigning agency and motivation to evolutionary processes. The uncanny valley is the product of evolution and thus by definition it has no “purpose”

> is the product of evolution and thus by definition it has no “purpose”

But as most things that appeared in evolution, it perhaps helped at least some individuals until sexual maturity and successful procreation.

Re: Three Inverse Laws of AI

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's patently insane to demand that humans alter their behavior to accommodate the foibles of mere machines Talking to chatbots is like taking a placebo pill for a condition. You know it's just sugar, but it creates a measurable psychosomatic effect nonetheless. Even if you know there's no person on the other end, the conversation still causes you to functionally relate as if there is. So this isn't "accommodating…

> That uncanny valley is there for a reason: to protect us from inferring agency You’re committing a much older but related sin here: assigning agency and motivation to evolutionary processes. The uncanny valley is the product of evolution and thus by definition it has no “purpose”

I reject the premise that the universe, the earth, and human existence is without purpose. It's one premise among several, and not one I subscribe to.

At least 80% of people agree with me, so I'm not holding to a fringe idea.

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