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They’re made out of weights

maxleiter.com

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Re: They’re made out of weights

#211

Post by Planktonne »

coldtea wrote: post #190
Planktonne wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key point here, I think, and why it's necessary to have read the original story, is that being able to express an idea is not the same as that idea being correct. You could go through and change all the points in the original story to be about a toaster instead. It would require you to edit text, but there is no barrier to doing that. What I think a lot of people are getting stuck on is that editing the text to s…

> You could go through and change all the points in the original story to be about a toaster instead. It would require you to edit text, but there is no barrier to doing that. Yes, there very much is a huge barrier. The copy and the original both keep the same subject matter: intelligence/human-like behavior. The toaster doesn't. We could do edits, and the story (original or copy) would lose all its potency. The surp…

I think you're misunderstanding me. There's no barrier to writing this story but about a toaster: you literally just type different words. Writing a story in which a toaster in conscious is not even new [1].

That is entirely separate to whether or not it's meaningful to write a story about a conscious toaster. Again, expressing an idea in fiction is not related to the accuracy of that idea.

What makes the original story interesting is that it was written by the thing claiming to be conscious, which is what takes it from 'a story' to 'a story making an important point'. That's not the case with a hypothetical story about a toaster, and it's not the case with this story about LLMs.

The story is convincing because it's well-written, not because it is factual.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brave_Little_Toaster

Re: They’re made out of weights

#213

Post by Planktonne »

maxbond wrote: post #184
Planktonne wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key point here, I think, and why it's necessary to have read the original story, is that being able to express an idea is not the same as that idea being correct. You could go through and change all the points in the original story to be about a toaster instead. It would require you to edit text, but there is no barrier to doing that. What I think a lot of people are getting stuck on is that editing the text to s…

I don't think you understood the point of the story. It's not that LLMs or agents are conscious, it's that our dismissal of the possibility is reflexive and uninformed. Personally I think anyone who has made their mind up about whether or not LLMs/agents are or can be conscious has done so before the evidence is in. The story does not assert that search and replacing "meat" with "weight" makes them conscious through…

No, it's a story. Stories can be about real things (the original story is about a real consciousness, as shown by it being produced by that consciousness), but they aren't automatically just because they're good stories.

You're falling into the trap of assuming that a good presentation--being convincing--is the same as being truthful.

Re: They’re made out of weights

#214

Post by trick-or-treat »

psychoslave wrote: post #167
trick-or-treat wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For an LLM, "innate" means "in their training data". So yeah, those things are pretty much innate.

When we say "it rains", do we consider that "it" has any intention of agentivity? Some questions are just ill formed. Plus even if "LLMs are alive and conscious", this still would scratch the surface of the morale/ethical/societal considerations that people really care about. Because even with other humans, we can argue if they exist or if they are mere npc in a solipsist world view.

I don't think we say "it rains", do we?

We say "it's raining" but that doesn't imply agency to whatever is causing it to rain.

Also, please don't invoke solipsism, if you want to debate that, you're by definition obligated to do it with yourself.

Re: They’re made out of weights

#215

Post by ffwd »

eszed wrote: post #203
ffwd wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure consciousness and self-awareness are the same thing. First is we can be conscious when we sleep/during REM sleep, where it's arguable we are not self-aware. And if not that, we can even do it when awake, for example when we think about a movie, or a philosophical problem, we can have conscious thoughts that are not related to the self. This leads me to believe consciousness is separate from self-awarenes…

Sure, but capacity for self-awareness? I'd guess that hamsters dream, and that their subconscious processes (eg, desires for food and sleep and sex), and maybe even emotions, run much like ours. It's just that humans, with more complex neural networks, have more layers added on top. It's similar to how the brain-stems of everything from lizards on "up" function similarly, but humans have more-developed pre-frontal co…

Well in that case I'm not sure where you're going. I agree that hamsters probably have a similar consciousness to ours, which is kind of the point I was trying to make.

I think that consciousness comes before self-awareness, even though self-awareness is kind of a vague term. Self-awareness can either be an abstract knowledge that you are an organism and a discrete entity in the world (world knowledge/self knowledge), or it can be more basic and be a form of conscious experience, but as my point was, I think conscious experience is broader and does not necessarily need to be about self-awareness.

Re: They’re made out of weights

#216

Post by Planktonne »

maxbond wrote: post #159
Planktonne wrote: post #141

The original story is an original work made by a human consciousness exploring how it might be different from other forms of consciousness. This one is a pastiche made by a human consciousness borrowing extremely heavily from another human consciousness justifying why something else might be another form of consciousness. That rather undercuts the point; if this was generated by an LLM unprompted, it would be differe…

You can't do the same with a toaster. Physically you could write that story. But it would fall flat because the toaster is not a compelling subject in a discussion of consciousness. You don't have to believe that LLMs or AI agents are conscious to acknowledge that the argument for their consciousness is far more compelling than any other technological artifact.

You could absolutely write a compelling story about a sentient toaster; it's been done before [1].

That is entirely separate to whether or not it would be a meaningful way to understand the world; a convincing story is not the same thing as one that is true.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brave_Little_Toaster

Re: They’re made out of weights

#217

Post by argee »

dleeftink wrote: post #208
maxbond wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't do the same with a toaster. Physically you could write that story. But it would fall flat because the toaster is not a compelling subject in a discussion of consciousness. You don't have to believe that LLMs or AI agents are conscious to acknowledge that the argument for their consciousness is far more compelling than any other technological artifact.

Well.. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsukumogami

You might like: https://vimeo.com/361976348?fl=pl&fe=vl

Re: They’re made out of weights

#218

Post by maxbond »

Planktonne wrote: post #213
maxbond wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you understood the point of the story. It's not that LLMs or agents are conscious, it's that our dismissal of the possibility is reflexive and uninformed. Personally I think anyone who has made their mind up about whether or not LLMs/agents are or can be conscious has done so before the evidence is in. The story does not assert that search and replacing "meat" with "weight" makes them conscious through…

No, it's a story. Stories can be about real things (the original story is about a real consciousness, as shown by it being produced by that consciousness), but they aren't automatically just because they're good stories. You're falling into the trap of assuming that a good presentation--being convincing--is the same as being truthful.

You've misunderstood me; I have not made the argument you are responding to.
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