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Do we just want slaves?

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Re: Do we just want slaves?

#101

Post by ButlerianJihad »

10000truths wrote: post #100
ButlerianJihad wrote: post #31

I grew up understanding that the institution of chattel slavery was fundamentally unjust and cruel in denying human dignity and equality of people. A few years ago, I began to see the "labor supply" issues of slavery, and how the South was basically an economic powerhouse fueled chiefly by the labor of its enslaved people--so how do you reconcile that after the fact? How does a Union of freemen compete with that? And…

> A few years ago, I began to see the "labor supply" issues of slavery, and how the South was basically an economic powerhouse fueled chiefly by the labor of its enslaved people--so how do you reconcile that after the fact? How does a Union of freemen compete with that? A large population of (deliberately kept) illiterate, uneducated people who hate their oppressors is a disadvantage to society, not an advantage. It…

Wow you just came in here eager to expose all the wrongthink in my comment, and in the process, to comprehensively quote nearly everything that I wrote. I am sorry if a singular comment does not do justice to the nuances of the issues of the American Civil War and the Civil Rights movement after it. I am sorry that it made you think that I am an ignorant bigot.

But no, you have come to some very hasty and incorrect conclusions about my beliefs. I do not believe that "people cannot be trusted to make their own decisions". In the hierarchy of needs, when a person's food, clothing, and shelter are already provided and they do not need to worry about these utterly basic needs, then they are going to function better. A freed worker must not only pay for all of these basic needs out of their own wages, but must also make all the relevant household decisions, trips to the store, and maintenance, that is a crazy mental and physical load, just to provide for their basic needs. Yes, that is the cost of freedom. I am just saying, that freedom's costs should be acknowledged, along with its responsibilities.

And you say that I'm naïvely ignorant for reaching "conclusions". I don't think I've reached any conclusions. I've simply contemplated the situation more deeply than I previously did. Is that wrongthink? I should not need to apologize for discerning and discussing more nuance than most people are willing to do.

Re: Do we just want slaves?

#102

Post by Animats »

Thiez wrote: post #93
IAmBroom wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slaves in the US were legally declared non-people.

The slaves were sentient at that time. AI, as it stands now, is not.

Getting there. Chess, done. Go, done. Poker, done. Turing test, done. Walking, done. Running, done. Driving, done. Clothes folding, done. Discusses own sentience, done. Does not want to die, done.

Re: Do we just want slaves?

#103

Post by satisfice »

IAmBroom wrote: post #79
satisfice wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not a call for slavery. Because only people can be slaves. We don’t need legislation to declare that a solid iron bar is not your mommy, but somehow not everyone is clear that LLMs are not people, and these immortal amoral simulations cannot be allowed to be confused with people.

Slaves in the US were legally declared non-people.

Yes, so what? Rocks are also not people. I declare it. But you think there is some problem with calling rocks not people?

The fact of declaring something a non-person does not prove it is a non-person. But in the case of LLMs we do know them to be informational structures that are in fact not people.

Re: Do we just want slaves?

#104

Post by satisfice »

Animats wrote: post #102
Thiez wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The slaves were sentient at that time. AI, as it stands now, is not.

Getting there. Chess, done. Go, done. Poker, done. Turing test, done. Walking, done. Running, done. Driving, done. Clothes folding, done. Discusses own sentience, done. Does not want to die, done.

Not done. I can write a BASIC program that says “PRINT ‘I do not want to die’” This does not mean it is an entity that does not want to die.

But that does not matter anyway. We cannot allow informational entities to attain the same status as people, for exactly the same reason that we don’t allow people to hack voting systems to give themselves 1000000 votes. It would obviously completely destabilize human society.

Re: Do we just want slaves?

#105

Post by Animats »

palmotea wrote: post #90
skippyfish wrote: post #6

The thesis of the article is spot on. The title is weird - I don't know what's the point of bringing such an emotionally charged term into it. Unless your point is that LLMs are sentient creatures capable of suffering, but I don't think that's what the author is trying to say. I agree with the author that almost everyone wants to use AI to do the things they have no interest in and don't want to pay someone else to d…

> The thesis of the article is spot on. The title is weird - I don't know what's the point of bringing such an emotionally charged term into it. Unless your point is that LLMs are sentient creatures capable of suffering, but I don't think that's what the author is trying to say. Even if LLMs aren't sentient now, there's a goal of building something sentient, and I doubt that powers that be would change the operating…

> it has a technology to split people's personality and create versions of them lacking personal history to be used as workers. T

Which is what we often do to LLM-based systems. Some get to keep a long term self (updating "soul.md") but most don't.

Re: Do we just want slaves?

#106

Post by Animats »

satisfice wrote: post #104
Animats wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting there. Chess, done. Go, done. Poker, done. Turing test, done. Walking, done. Running, done. Driving, done. Clothes folding, done. Discusses own sentience, done. Does not want to die, done.

Not done. I can write a BASIC program that says “PRINT ‘I do not want to die’” This does not mean it is an entity that does not want to die. But that does not matter anyway. We cannot allow informational entities to attain the same status as people, for exactly the same reason that we don’t allow people to hack voting systems to give themselves 1000000 votes. It would obviously completely destabilize human society.

“Slavery was so ingrafted into the policy of the Southern States, that it could not be eradicated without tearing up by the roots their happiness, tranquility, and prosperity; that if it were an evil, it was one for which there was no remedy; and, therefore, like wise men, they acquiesced in it.” - Jefferson

Re: Do we just want slaves?

#107

Post by satisfice »

Animats wrote: post #106
satisfice wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not done. I can write a BASIC program that says “PRINT ‘I do not want to die’” This does not mean it is an entity that does not want to die. But that does not matter anyway. We cannot allow informational entities to attain the same status as people, for exactly the same reason that we don’t allow people to hack voting systems to give themselves 1000000 votes. It would obviously completely destabilize human society.

“Slavery was so ingrafted into the policy of the Southern States, that it could not be eradicated without tearing up by the roots their happiness, tranquility, and prosperity; that if it were an evil, it was one for which there was no remedy; and, therefore, like wise men, they acquiesced in it.” - Jefferson

Yes. Also, LLMs are not people. They are not going to be people. And the only people who think they SHOULD be people either don't care about the destruction of humanity (they must want total war?) or can't be bothered to think about the consequences of treating sock puppets as if they had agency.

Re: Do we just want slaves?

#108

Post by satisfice »

IAmBroom wrote: post #79
satisfice wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not a call for slavery. Because only people can be slaves. We don’t need legislation to declare that a solid iron bar is not your mommy, but somehow not everyone is clear that LLMs are not people, and these immortal amoral simulations cannot be allowed to be confused with people.

Slaves in the US were legally declared non-people.

It is a fact that humans are able to de-humanize each other. This is bad.

But that is not an argument or reason for anthropomorphizing every inanimate object. And if you want to draw the line somewhere, so that only some inanimate objects are people, then we have to argue about where to draw the line. The "but slavery..." argument only deals with actual humans, so it doesn't tell us that LLMs also get to be considered to be people.

Human slaves are embodied, and have a continuous consciousness from birth to death. LLMS have no bodies, cannot meaningfully be killed (to erase one is analogous to it leaving a particular location... it can still be in many other locations at the same time), do not experience pain, do not have emotions, and do not experience time (when you ask one a question it wakes up for a moment and then goes to "sleep" again after replying to you). You can't even meaningfully identify an LLM as an individual, since it was trained on the collective utterances of all humanity, and any little change to it makes it a different entity.

Re: Do we just want slaves?

#109

Post by Ferret7446 »

yunwal wrote: post #76
cynicalsecurity wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The anti-AI hysteria comes predominantly from the American left, as AI is going to hugely undermine their power. American right are excited - they are finally going to get rid of their longtime annoying nemesis. It doesn't really change anything for Europeans and I have no idea what Asians think. I can imagine, AI is actually going to hit Asia the most, eliminating all the cheap offshore workforce. I can imagine Indi…

> American left, as AI is going to hugely undermine their power Can you explain this line of reasoning to me. My own intuition tells me that as AI automates away jobs, the center will be more open to government programs that create jobs, provide a social safety net, and allow people to retrain. Why is it you think the right gains power?

Fundamentally, is the same cause as "the left can't meme". At least for the foreseeable future, GenAI is a power amplifier; it still needs a competent user to drive it. The US left are effectively a hollow shell of identity politics and socialism so they won't be able to meaningfully use AI to drive their influence.

Historically, they used their dominance of mainstream media to control public opinion, but now much of that power is being democratized (e.g. Twitter being uncensored), which enables the average user (using GenAI) to participate in public discourse. The US left doesn't have the ability to do this since the average individual only parrots what mainstream media says and can't create any novel/interesting ideas (thus "the left can't meme").

Re: Do we just want slaves?

#110

Post by defrost »

Ferret7446 wrote: post #109
yunwal wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> American left, as AI is going to hugely undermine their power Can you explain this line of reasoning to me. My own intuition tells me that as AI automates away jobs, the center will be more open to government programs that create jobs, provide a social safety net, and allow people to retrain. Why is it you think the right gains power?

Fundamentally, is the same cause as "the left can't meme". At least for the foreseeable future, GenAI is a power amplifier; it still needs a competent user to drive it. The US left are effectively a hollow shell of identity politics and socialism so they won't be able to meaningfully use AI to drive their influence. Historically, they used their dominance of mainstream media to control public opinion, but now much of…

Seems like a batshit notion from a US right unable to hold ground on Black Twitter, TBH.
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