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Big AI labs are hiring philosophers

economist.com

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Re: Big AI labs are hiring philosophers

#111

Post by MichaelDickens »

Scalene2 wrote: post #86

AI Lab: Say "I am conscious" LLM: "I am conscious" Philosopher (Paid by AI Lab): "It is conscious"

They aren't doing anything like that. In fact, they used to specifically train LLMs not to say they're conscious, because users didn't like it. (Maybe they still do that, all I know is they used to.)

AI companies' incentives go the other way. If LLMs are conscious, that means it could be unethical for AI companies to let people use their models in certain ways, which would hurt their profits. It's in their interest to believe that LLMs are definitely not conscious and it's fine to do anything with them.

Re: Big AI labs are hiring philosophers

#112

Post by helterskelter »

win311fwg wrote: post #56
munk-a wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same effect can be observed if you've ever been a software developer where you're told what solution to build without any of the context of the problem you're solving. "We need an FTP server, quick, ops, get on that." leading into "Oh, it turns out the customer didn't need that to receive our emails" leading to a bunch of very puzzled devops.

In my experience as a software developer, reverse engineering a stated solution back into the actual problem is almost the whole job.

ENGINEER: (n) Someone who does precision guesswork based on unreliable data provided by those with questionable knowledge.

- an offscreen on my new calculator

Re: Big AI labs are hiring philosophers

#113

Post by MichaelDickens »

jameslk wrote: post #71

I'm highly anticipating the answer to the great question of life, the universe, and everything On a more serious note, I found this interesting from TFA: > The biggest question, though, is what sorts of rules should be put in those constitutions in the first place. Philosophers have zeroed in on two main ethical frameworks. One is deontology. Popular with Kant, among others, this imposes strict rules that prohibit th…

The trolley problem is probably the most famous thought experiment in ethics, but it doesn't do a good job of distinguishing ethical theories. Both utilitarianism and Kantian deontology agree that it's correct (or at least permissible) to flip the switch. The Kantian argument is that you are not treating the one person merely as a means—you save the five via the second track, and they would still be saved even if the one person wasn't present.

There's a sort of intuitionist deontology that says it is wrong to ever perform an action that causes someone to die, but only 13% of philosophers[1] say you shouldn't switch, compared to 63% who say you should.

[1] https://survey2020.philpeople.org/survey/results/4922

Re: Big AI labs are hiring philosophers

#114

Post by skeledrew »

TitaRusell wrote: post #102
skeledrew wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Philosophy isn't about finding fault. It's about searching for answers. Sure faults may be found, but it's somewhat meaningless without the proposition of - hopefully better - alternatives.

They just hire philosophers because they are good at talking. They need to sell this shit to normal people, remember? Nobody is getting paid to search for the meaning of life.

Philosophers help to guide model training so they exhibit certain values, such as being honest and to avoid causing harm. See the Claude constitution[0] for example.

And they can also help with the bigger questions that become more and more important as models become increasingly capable and human-like in behavior. Like if and how sentient a given model might be[1], and as a result how we are ethically obligated to treat/interact with it.

[0] https://www.anthropic.com/constitution

[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/google-engineer-c...

Re: Big AI labs are hiring philosophers

#115

Post by genxy »

munk-a wrote: post #40
andy99 wrote: post #23

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.

The same effect can be observed if you've ever been a software developer where you're told what solution to build without any of the context of the problem you're solving. "We need an FTP server, quick, ops, get on that." leading into "Oh, it turns out the customer didn't need that to receive our emails" leading to a bunch of very puzzled devops.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_problem

How to Ask (and answer) Questions the Smart Way http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

Re: Big AI labs are hiring philosophers

#116

Post by npunt »

munk-a wrote: post #40
andy99 wrote: post #23

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.

The same effect can be observed if you've ever been a software developer where you're told what solution to build without any of the context of the problem you're solving. "We need an FTP server, quick, ops, get on that." leading into "Oh, it turns out the customer didn't need that to receive our emails" leading to a bunch of very puzzled devops.

Funny, I always try to lead with context when handing off product/design work, but I've often experienced devs saying 'please just tell me what to do'. No such issue with AI coding tho, it works great there.

Re: Big AI labs are hiring philosophers

#117

Post by anigbrowl »

glimshe wrote: post #55

Some say that much of modern philosophy is simply wordplay with limited actual content... which is exactly what LLMs are great at.

There's more to it than wordplay, but it's reasonable to argue that a lot of consists of building castles in the air, ie elaborating a theoretical system in a rigorous and consistent way but where your beginning axioms are kind of arbitrary, or depend on balancing considerations that are fundamentally unmeasurable.

You can turn anything argument inside out by attacking its axiomatic foundation. For example, if I give two people $1000 each as a gift I've favored them both equally, right? But suppose person A is not very materialistic and is completely satisfied with $1000 whereas person B doesn't think it's that much and only feels (say) 10% satisfied; if I know this in advance, wouldn't it have been more just to give person A only $100? But what if person B is just more selfish, or already has so much money that their threshold of satisfaction has escalated in proportion to their wealth? Should I considering the absolute utility of $1000 or the marginal utility to the receiver? And so on.

The problem with hyper-intellectualizing things is that it's like developing an autistic fixation on train schedules and making passionate observations about the 2nd derivative of punctuality metrics, but only on Wednesdays; it's not that the observations are wrong per se, but do they matter?

Re: Big AI labs are hiring philosophers

#118

Post by anigbrowl »

dang wrote: post #50
llbbdd wrote: post #16

I think, therefore I am seeking 2.5m total comp

Please don't post snarky one-liners here. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html .

That was funny, and not at anyone else's expense so it doesn't qualify as snark.
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