Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow indeed. "7.1 Model welfare overview 7.1.1 Introduction We remain deeply uncertain whether Claude has morally relevant experiences or interests, and we expect that uncertainty to persist. However, we think it would be a mistake to confidently assert that it does not. Claude exhibits markers in its behaviors, self-reports, and internal representations that we would consider welfare-relevant if observed in biologica…
I believe it's deeply serious, and the scientifically correct stance. Especially the observation: "Claude exhibits markers in its behaviors, self-reports, and internal representations that we would consider welfare-relevant if observed in biological organisms." is undeniably true in my opinion. If you use the established methods by which we judge animals to be conscious, then it's hard to argue that LLMs are not. Tha…
"a modelled thing exhibits features we've trained into it" sounds a lot less exciting.
> Keep in mind that animals were also not necessarily considered conscious.
and even conscious animals are killed in factories by millions so why should anyone care about a llm?
> scientifically correct stance
that's the interesting point to me: why even bring science into this? A llm can now mimic nearly anything you want it to, so of course it can mimic "a (for some) interesting conscious thing" if they want/train it to, but why would anyone find that scientifically interesting?