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The Problem with AI Welfare

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Re: The Problem with AI Welfare

#101

Post by JustinCS »

Bigpet wrote: post #95
JustinCS wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not highly concerned but I think there is merit in at least contemplating this problem. I believe that it would be better to reduce suffering in animals, but I am not vegan because the weight of my moral concern for animals does not outweigh my other priorities. I believe that it doesn't really matter whether consciousness comes from electronics or cells. If something seems identical to what we consider conscious…

I too think there is merit in exploring to what degree conciousness can be approximated by or observed in computational systems of any kind. Including neural networks. But I just can't get over how fake and manipulative the framing of "AI welfare" or concern over suffering feels.

That's reasonable, I certainly believe that there are many fake and manipulative people who say what's best for their personal gain, perhaps even the majority. But I still think it's reasonable to imagine that there are some people are genuinely concerned about this.

Re: The Problem with AI Welfare

#102

Post by Workaccount2 »

esafak wrote: post #12

The article stops where it should be getting started: > The issue is, if we push moral considerations for algorithms, we will not end up with a higher regard to human welfare. We will lower our regard for other humans. When we see other humans not as ends in themselves with inherent dignity, we get problems. When we liken them to animals or tools to be used, we will exploit and abuse them. > With model welfare, we mi…

>To the skeptics in this discussion: what are you going to say when you are confronted with walking, talking robots that argue that they have rights?

"Haven't you ever seen a movie? The robots can't know what true love is! Humans are magical! (according to humans)"

Re: The Problem with AI Welfare

#103

Post by dinfinity »

esafak wrote: post #12

The article stops where it should be getting started: > The issue is, if we push moral considerations for algorithms, we will not end up with a higher regard to human welfare. We will lower our regard for other humans. When we see other humans not as ends in themselves with inherent dignity, we get problems. When we liken them to animals or tools to be used, we will exploit and abuse them. > With model welfare, we mi…

Rights are just very strong norms that improve cooperation, not some mystical 'god-given' or universe-inherent truth, imho.

I think this because:

1. We regularly have exceptions to rights if they conflict with cooperation. The death penalty, asset seizure, unprotected hate speech, etc.

2. Most basic human rights evolve in a convergent manner, i.e. that throughout time and across cultures very similar norms have been introduced independently. They will always ultimately arise in any sizeable society because they work, just like eyes will always evolve biologically.

3. If property rights, right to live, etc. are not present or enforced, all people will focus on simply surviving and some will exploit the liberties they can take, both of which lead to far worse outcomes for the collective.

Similarly, I would argue that consciousness is also very functional. Through meditation, music, sleeping, anasthesia, optical illusions, and psychedelics and dissociatives we gain knowledge on how our own consciousness works, on how it behaves differently under different circumstances. It is a brain trying to run a (highly spatiotemporal) model/simulation of what is happening in realtime, with a large language component encoding things in words, and an attention component focusing efforts on things with the most value, all to refine the model and select actions beneficial to the organism.

I'd add here that the language component is probably the only thing in which our consciousness differs significantly from that of animals. So if you want to experience what it feels like to be an animal, use meditation/breathing techniques and/or music to fully disable your inner narrator for a while.

Re: The Problem with AI Welfare

#104

Post by emp17344 »

AlphaAndOmega0 wrote: post #83
ajsocjxhdushz wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The brain, despite some motivated efforts to demonstrate otherwise, runs on the laws of physics. I'm a doctor, even if not a neurosurgeon, and I can reliably tell you that you can modulate conscious experience by physical interventions. The brain runs on physical laws, and said laws can be modeled. It doesn't matter that the substrate is soggy protein rather than silicon. As of today’s knowledge. There is an egregi…

Do you have any actual concrete reasons for thinking that our understanding of consciousness will change? If not, then this is a pointless comment. We need to work with what we know. For example, we know that the Standard Model of physics is incomplete. That doesn't mean that if someone says that it they drop a ball in a vacuum, it'll fall, we should hold out in studied agnosticism because it might go upwards or off…

The existence of consciousness is self-evident, and yet we still have no idea what it is, or how to study it. We don’t have any understanding of consciousness.

Re: The Problem with AI Welfare

#105

Post by benterix »

jrm4 wrote: post #2

Oh wow. My respect for Anthropic just dropped to zero; I had no idea they were entertaining ideas this stupid. In full agreement with OP; there is just about no justifiable basis to begin to ascribe consciousness to these things in this way. Can't think of a better use for the word "dehumanizing."

> Oh wow. My respect for Anthropic just dropped to zero; I had no idea they were entertaining ideas this stupid.

It's not stupid at all. Their valuation depends on the hype, and the way sama choose was to convince investors that AGI is near. Anthropic decided to follow this route so they do their best to make the claim plausible. This is not stupid, this is deliberate strategy.

Re: The Problem with AI Welfare

#106

Post by ACCount36 »

bko wrote: post #29
gavinray wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is so absurd about the idea of ascribing consciousness to some potential future form of AI? We don't understand consciousness, but we've an idea that it's an emergent phenomena. Given the recent papers about how computationally dense our DNA are, and the computing capacity of our brains, is it so unreasonable to assume that a sufficiently complex program running on non-organic matter could give rise to conscious…

Because they're numbers represented in digital form. In inference, you're doing simple math with those numbers. So what's alive, the numbers? Maybe the silicon holding the numbers? What if we print them out? Does the book become conscious? Even if you're a materialist, surely you think there is a difference between a human brain and a brain on a lab table. You take a dead persons brain, run some current through it an…

What's the fundamental, inescapable difference between "numbers represented in digital form" and "jelly made of wet flesh crammed into an oversized monkey skull"?

Why should one be more valid than the other?

Re: The Problem with AI Welfare

#107

Post by esafak »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #102
esafak wrote: post #12

The article stops where it should be getting started: > The issue is, if we push moral considerations for algorithms, we will not end up with a higher regard to human welfare. We will lower our regard for other humans. When we see other humans not as ends in themselves with inherent dignity, we get problems. When we liken them to animals or tools to be used, we will exploit and abuse them. > With model welfare, we mi…

>To the skeptics in this discussion: what are you going to say when you are confronted with walking, talking robots that argue that they have rights? "Haven't you ever seen a movie? The robots can't know what true love is! Humans are magical! (according to humans)"

I can't reconcile your dismissive response here with your other one in this discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44258807

Re: The Problem with AI Welfare

#108

Post by pearlsontheroad »

bbor wrote: post #61
bko wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they're numbers represented in digital form. In inference, you're doing simple math with those numbers. So what's alive, the numbers? Maybe the silicon holding the numbers? What if we print them out? Does the book become conscious? Even if you're a materialist, surely you think there is a difference between a human brain and a brain on a lab table. You take a dead persons brain, run some current through it an…

Yes, if you take a dead persons brain and run current through it continuously so that it can direct a body and produce novel thoughts then that is equivalent to a living human being. Your brain is ultimately just numbers represented in neuronal form. What's conscious, the neurons?

This level of materialism is soul-crushing :)

Re: The Problem with AI Welfare

#109

Post by parpfish »

hollerith wrote: post #90
parpfish wrote: post #17

Back when I was calculating eigenvectors for my linear algebra homework, I had no idea I should've been taking the matrices well being into account. Those math professors are downright barbaric with their complete disregard for the welfare of the numbers.

For those who are persuaded by this "it's just matrices" argument, are you also persuaded by the argument that it does not matter how you treat a human being because a human being is just a complicated arrangement of atoms?

no.

we understand everything that a transformer does at computational/mechanistic level. you could print out an enormous book of weights/biases and somebody could sit down with a pen and paper (and near-infinite time/patience) and arrive at the exact same solution that any of these models do. the transformer is just a math problem.

but the counterargument that you're getting is "if you know the position/momentum of every atom in the universe and apply physical laws to them, you could claim that everything is 'just a math problem'". And... yeah. I guess you're right. Everything is just a math problem, so there must be some other thing that makes animal intelligence special or worthy of care.

I don't know what that line is, but i think it's pretty clear that LLMs are on the side that's "this is just math so dont worry about it"

Re: The Problem with AI Welfare

#110

Post by ACCount36 »

vonneumannstan wrote: post #75
tomrod wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AGI may not be impossible. But next token prediction won't get us there.

It's actually really unclear that this is true. If you brought GPT-o3 back to 1990 I have a hard time believing the world wouldn't immediately consider it full AGI.

If you told a person from 1990 that in the year 2025, they have this thing, and described OpenAI's o3 - strengths, flaws and all? That person would say "yep, your sci-fi future of year 2025 has actual AI!"

But if someone managed to actually make o3 in year 1990? Not in some abstact sci-fi future, but actually there, available broadly, as something you could access from your PC for a small fee?

People would say "well, it's not ackhtually intelligent because..."

Because people are incredibly stupid, and AI effect is incredibly powerful.

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