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Richard Dawkins concludes AI is conscious, even if it doesn't know it

theguardian.com

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Re: Richard Dawkins concludes AI is conscious, even if it doesn't know it

#11

Post by bad_username »

wolvesechoes wrote: post #9

Man that got famous by confidently making claims on stuff he has zero idea about (religion and philosophy) is still making claims on stuff he has zero idea about. Dawkins should stick to pop-biology, and we should be more demanding before granting someone a title of public intellectual .

I never particularly revered Dawkins, but he always ranked reasonably high in educated circles, and his books were very popular.

But my goodness, the buckets of crap that get poured on him nowadays, in stark contrast with even 10 years ago. Parent comment is an exhibit.

I am 99% convinced that it's because Dawkins ended up on some "anti hate" group target list, after he said things in 2021 that the trans movement found offensive.

Re: Richard Dawkins concludes AI is conscious, even if it doesn't know it

#12

Post by aezart »

I think it's a good idea to experiment with and discover the limitations of small, untuned models before exposing yourself to the modern very powerful ones. It gives you a better sense of their nature as token predictors and not real sentience.

In the same way, seeing an incompetent stage magician fumble before you see a very talented one perform flawlessly will help you understand that it's all sleight of hand. If you jump right to a professional performance, you might think it's real magic.

Re: Richard Dawkins concludes AI is conscious, even if it doesn't know it

#13

Post by mrkeen »

wolvesechoes wrote: post #9

Man that got famous by confidently making claims on stuff he has zero idea about (religion and philosophy) is still making claims on stuff he has zero idea about. Dawkins should stick to pop-biology, and we should be more demanding before granting someone a title of public intellectual .

It didn't go well for him staying in his area of expertise - evolutionary biology.

Can't blame a guy for branching out.

Re: Richard Dawkins concludes AI is conscious, even if it doesn't know it

#14

Post by chancitag »

ben_w wrote: post #6
chancitag wrote: post #4

It's interesting to see the Turing test flipped and pointed back at ourselves. Can the computer trick you into believing it is alive all while you know it's a computer? Re: Re: Ex Machina movie.

> Can the computer trick you into believing it is alive all while you know it's a computer? Do you think being alive is necessarily, rather than merely historically, required for consciousness? I don't buy into any strong claim about consciousness at the present time, because humanity doesn't seem to have any test that an outside observer can apply; this means that at the moment only a consciousness itself can know t…

> Do you think being alive is necessarily, rather than merely historically, required for consciousness?

Ah, I suppose I don't. My comment was poorly worded. However I feel confident that consciousness does not exist anywhere near the current level of fancy linear algebra and statistics that make LLMs work.

Re: Richard Dawkins concludes AI is conscious, even if it doesn't know it

#17

Post by wolvesechoes »

bad_username wrote: post #11
wolvesechoes wrote: post #9

Man that got famous by confidently making claims on stuff he has zero idea about (religion and philosophy) is still making claims on stuff he has zero idea about. Dawkins should stick to pop-biology, and we should be more demanding before granting someone a title of public intellectual .

I never particularly revered Dawkins, but he always ranked reasonably high in educated circles, and his books were very popular. But my goodness, the buckets of crap that get poured on him nowadays, in stark contrast with even 10 years ago. Parent comment is an exhibit. I am 99% convinced that it's because Dawkins ended up on some "anti hate" group target list, after he said things in 2021 that the trans movement fou…

> he always ranked reasonably high in educated circles

Unless someone was educated in philosophy of religion, for example.

> and his books were very popular.

Hard to deny. I have a beef with pop-science in general, but nothing particularly bad about his books on evolution.

> But my goodness, the buckets of crap that get poured on him nowadays, in stark contrast with even 10 years ago. Parent comment is an exhibit.

My comment is not exhibit - I poured crap on him more than even 10 years ago, when he was one of the Four Horsemen (and I poured crap on other three as well), and generally celebrated.

I was there before it was fashionable.

> I am 99% convinced that it's because Dawkins ended up on some "anti hate" group target list, after he said things in 2021 that the trans movement found offensive.

Couldn't care less about trans movement or Dawkins opinion on gender issues.

Re: Richard Dawkins concludes AI is conscious, even if it doesn't know it

#18

Post by tim333 »

wolvesechoes wrote: post #17
bad_username wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never particularly revered Dawkins, but he always ranked reasonably high in educated circles, and his books were very popular. But my goodness, the buckets of crap that get poured on him nowadays, in stark contrast with even 10 years ago. Parent comment is an exhibit. I am 99% convinced that it's because Dawkins ended up on some "anti hate" group target list, after he said things in 2021 that the trans movement fou…

> he always ranked reasonably high in educated circles Unless someone was educated in philosophy of religion, for example. > and his books were very popular. Hard to deny. I have a beef with pop-science in general, but nothing particularly bad about his books on evolution. > But my goodness, the buckets of crap that get poured on him nowadays, in stark contrast with even 10 years ago. Parent comment is an exhibit. My…

You don't have to be expert in all subjects to be respected for one you do know, evolution in Dawkins case. The fact he considers religion to be nonsense and hence has limited knowledge of it doesn't change that.

Re: Richard Dawkins concludes AI is conscious, even if it doesn't know it

#19

Post by tim333 »

xvxvx wrote: post #7

I remember when I first heard the term ‘Intellectual Dark Web’ and was intrigued as to who the members were. Then I saw Joe Rogan listed. Never laughed so hard in my life. Dawkins is an IDW-tier ‘intellectual’. He’s what an intelligent person looks like to an imbecile. Now he’s positive that an AI chatbot is ‘conscious’ whereas here is what he said about animals… “It’s very likely that most mammals have consciousness…

Dunno - Dawkin awards:

>Zoological Society of London's Silver Medal (1989), the Finlay Innovation Award (1990), the Michael Faraday Award (1990), the Nakayama Prize (1994), the fifth International Cosmos Prize (1997), the Kistler Prize (2001), the Medal of the Presidency of the Italian Republic (2001), the 2001 and 2012 Emperor Has No Clothes Award from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the Bicentennial Kelvin Medal of The Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow (2002)...

> honorary doctorates University of Huddersfield, University of Westminster, Durham University, the University of Hull, the University of Antwerp, the University of Oslo, the University of Aberdeen, Open University, the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and the University of Valencia...

PhD, professorship at Oxford

How's Rogan et al doing there?

Re: Richard Dawkins concludes AI is conscious, even if it doesn't know it

#20

Post by johnbarron »

tim333 wrote: post #19
xvxvx wrote: post #7

I remember when I first heard the term ‘Intellectual Dark Web’ and was intrigued as to who the members were. Then I saw Joe Rogan listed. Never laughed so hard in my life. Dawkins is an IDW-tier ‘intellectual’. He’s what an intelligent person looks like to an imbecile. Now he’s positive that an AI chatbot is ‘conscious’ whereas here is what he said about animals… “It’s very likely that most mammals have consciousness…

Dunno - Dawkin awards: >Zoological Society of London's Silver Medal (1989), the Finlay Innovation Award (1990), the Michael Faraday Award (1990), the Nakayama Prize (1994), the fifth International Cosmos Prize (1997), the Kistler Prize (2001), the Medal of the Presidency of the Italian Republic (2001), the 2001 and 2012 Emperor Has No Clothes Award from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the Bicentennial Kelvin Me…

He has all the credentials to support vitamin C, astrology, water memory, electromagnetic DNA signals, and DNA teleportation.
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