81–90 of 153 posts
It'll be funny when AI will embody human philosophy better than us.
Jesus will come back in 2031 and say - oh shit where is everyone? Humanoid Cylon pops out from the woods: Oh, crap you were really real! We exterminated all the humans a year ago. Well, I guess we did make a mistake. Someone make an AI video of that.
Hmm I spent a good amount of time in big tech, now work in AI, and I minored in philosophy at Berkeley back in the day (Parmenides, Socrates, Plato etc.) How do I align myself with such a job?
Same - philosopher here please hire me. My bachelors thesis was “Wittgensteinian problems for artificial general intelligence.” Three decades working closely with tech and haven’t failed the Turing test yet. I think SBF and his education from birth (via his mother) in consequentialism should point to the issues made clear when that ethical approach goes wrong or operates from bad, egoistic data, which it’s generally…
Moreover, in her book, she claims not to be consequentialist, quite, but had infected her sons:
> Finally, I would like to acknowledge a significant intellectual debt to Joe Bankman and our sons, Sam and Gabe. When Sam was about fourteen, he emerged from his bedroom one evening and said to me, seemingly out of the blue, "What kind of person dismisses an argument they disagree with by labelling it 'the Repugnant Conclusion'?" Clearly, things were not as I, in my impoverished imagination, had assumed them to be in our household. Restless minds were at work making sense of the world around them without any help from me. In the years since, both Sam and Gabe have become take-no-prisoners utilitarians, joining their father in that hardy band. I am not (yet?) a card-carrying member myself, but in countless discussions around the kitchen table, literally and figuratively, about the subject of this book, they have taught me at least as much as I have taught them. More importantly, they have shown me by example the nobility of the ethical principle at the heart of utilitarianism: a commitment to the wellbeing of all people, and to counting each person-alive now or in the future, halfway around the world or next door, known or unknown to us as one.
> This book is for all my boys: Joe, Sam, Gabe, and Matt.
(Needless to say, 'counting everyone as one' doesn't entail consequentialism, nor have most consequentialists had that principle.)
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Facing_Up_to_Scarcity/Q...
Some say that much of modern philosophy is simply wordplay with limited actual content... which is exactly what LLMs are great at.
Given the the labs are trying to create [super] human-like consciousness, partly through the guidance of huge system prompts, and many philosophers are experts in textual descriptions of consciousness it makes sense
I just read an entire book about consciousness [0] , and now I understand myself even less . [0] https://www.amazon.com/World-Appears-Journey-into-Consciousn... > My key takeaway was this: I feel , therefore I am; not sure if any more conscious than plants.
It is going to be a big problem for humanity when the superintelligent AIs start telling us that our political philosophies, to which everyone is deeply and emotionally attached, are total garbage. One obvious example is: we have a bizarre and anomalous belief that political union has a special moral status unlike other relationships (marital, financial, social, etc). In all other cases, relationships require consent…
I think that the point of your post, which is that our morals and ethics are often illogical and don't stand up to scrutiny, is getting lost in the debate over your example.
LLM: "I am conscious"
Philosopher (Paid by AI Lab): "It is conscious"
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I just read an entire book about consciousness [0] , and now I understand myself even less . [0] https://www.amazon.com/World-Appears-Journey-into-Consciousn... > My key takeaway was this: I feel , therefore I am; not sure if any more conscious than plants.
You also communicate with others (not-you). You know that there are others because you can gain knowledge from them, which you didn't have before. And in that knowledge lies awareness of your self and consciousness.
Is an elm also conscious?
Hmm I spent a good amount of time in big tech, now work in AI, and I minored in philosophy at Berkeley back in the day (Parmenides, Socrates, Plato etc.) How do I align myself with such a job?
Genuinely, understanding around philosophy of action has been deeply enriching over my life. To anyone trying to decide on a minor philosophy is always an excellent choice.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That sounds like providing context rather than anything philosophical, and it stands to reason that it would lead to better decision making.
I would say it is definitely a form of context, but when people think of LLM context windows in terms of coding is more technical context related: "what has been done before, what's the coding task at hand." etc. However, I think that there is a philosophical portion to that context as well: "What problem is this feature supposed to help with? How would you verify that passing unit tests means that the code is workin…
>Dr Floridi describes the scale of departures from philosophy departments as a “haemorrhaging”. I wonder if anyone who is connected with actual academic philosophy can comment on this. I'm pretty skeptical. This is a field where it is notoriously hard to get a real academic position, I would bet there is no shortage of people for these roles.
>hard to get a real academic position Tech companies like to rob the cradle, and academic departments hire far more grad students and postdocs than professors. Of course, this is also part of the problem with academic careers.
Of course you will have less spots as you go up the ladder.