Live data from Hacker News

In Search of AI Psychosis

astralcodexten.com

111–120 of 258 posts

Re: In Search of AI Psychosis

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a good and succinct insight, and also often explains the "racist uncle" stereotype - there are a lot of people who don't get out much, whose world is limited to e.g. home, work, maybe friends, and TV and/or a subset of the internet. Some of those will develop close-minded viewpoints, often spoonfed through TV or the internet (for example, recently there's been a lot of comments on the internet saying "you get ar…

Yes everyone with my political beliefs has a well-structured world model, everyone without my political beliefs is a model-free slop machine that just goes by vibes.

> Yes everyone with my political beliefs has a well-structured world model

As nice as that would be, its only marginally less true.

> everyone without my political beliefs is a model-free slop machine that just goes by vibes.

Nah, some of them are evil on purpose.

but like, in all seriousness. Politics is downstream of a world-model right? And the two predominant world models are giving very different predictions, right? So what are the odds that both models are somehow equally valid, equally wrong (even if its on different cases that somehow happen to add to the same 'moral value')? And we also know that one of the models predicts that climate change isn't real? at some point, a world-model is so bad that it is indistinguishable being a model-free slop machine.

Re: In Search of AI Psychosis

#112
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also absurdly wrong, and a quote that only a self-identified rationalist could smugly tout. Of course everyone has world models. Otherwise people would wander into traffic like headless chickens, if they'd even be capable of that. What he likely means is that not everyone explicitly things of possibilities in terms of probabilities that are a function of Bayesian updating. That does not imply the absence of worl…

Cows don't walk in to lampposts either, but that's not telling us much. Roughly 4% of the population are said to have aphantasia (lacking a "mind's eye"). Around 10% (numbers vary) don't have an internal monologue. Unfortunately there's almost no research on the consequences of things which many would consider prerequisites for evaluating truth-claims about the world around them, but obviously it's not quite so stark…

>they struggle to imagine anything which would get them in to trouble

God you are so convinced of your own brilliance aren't you?

>aphantasia reads a truth claim 'X is true' and they can't visualise the evidence in their mind

That's not what aphantasia is. It's just visual imagery, it says nothing about one's capacity to reason through hypotheticals or counterfactuals.

Re: In Search of AI Psychosis

#113
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also absurdly wrong, and a quote that only a self-identified rationalist could smugly tout. Of course everyone has world models. Otherwise people would wander into traffic like headless chickens, if they'd even be capable of that. What he likely means is that not everyone explicitly things of possibilities in terms of probabilities that are a function of Bayesian updating. That does not imply the absence of worl…

Cows don't walk in to lampposts either, but that's not telling us much. Roughly 4% of the population are said to have aphantasia (lacking a "mind's eye"). Around 10% (numbers vary) don't have an internal monologue. Unfortunately there's almost no research on the consequences of things which many would consider prerequisites for evaluating truth-claims about the world around them, but obviously it's not quite so stark…

Hi, I have aphantasia. When I close my eyes I don’t see anything, just darkness.

I’d be interested in seeing a study of similar people but in this sample size (n=1), visualising evidence isn’t needed to evaluate it. I’m perfectly comfortable thinking about things without needing an image of it in my head or in front of me.

For example: should we allow big game hunting as a way to fund wildlife conservation? Whoa, not sure. Let me google an image of an elephant so I can remind myself what they look like.

Re: In Search of AI Psychosis

#114

It may not be full-blown psychosis, but I’ve seen multiple instances[0][1] of people getting “engaged” (ring and all) to their AI companions. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/MyBoyfriendIsAI/s/oZXJ3TUhVC [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/MyBoyfriendIsAI/s/nZpoziZO8W

Reading these posts terrifies me to a degree that I can’t explain.

Re: In Search of AI Psychosis

#115
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes everyone with my political beliefs has a well-structured world model, everyone without my political beliefs is a model-free slop machine that just goes by vibes.

> Yes everyone with my political beliefs has a well-structured world model As nice as that would be, its only marginally less true. > everyone without my political beliefs is a model-free slop machine that just goes by vibes. Nah, some of them are evil on purpose. but like, in all seriousness. Politics is downstream of a world-model right? And the two predominant world models are giving very different predictions, ri…

> but like, in all seriousness. Politics is downstream of a world-model right?

Politics is (if systematically grounded, which for many individuals it probably isn't-and this isn't a statement about one faction or another, it is true across factions) necessarily downstream of a moral/ethical value framework. If that is a consequentialist framework, it necessarily also requires a world model. If it is a deontological framework, a world model may or may not be necessary.

> And the two predominant world models are giving very different predictions, right?

I...don't agree with the premise of the question that there are "two dominant world models". Even people in the same broad political faction tend to have a wide variety of different world models and moral frameworks; political factions are defined more by shared political conclusions than shared fundamental premises, whether of model or morals; and even within a system like the US where there are two broad electoral coalitions, there more than two identifiable political factions, so even if factions were cohesive around world models, partisan duopoly wouldn't imply a limitation to two dominant world models.

Re: In Search of AI Psychosis

#116
I wonder if the post about a mother convincing her 8 year old by presenting the case to AI is merely the child wanting an impartial third party to weigh in. She likely knows that the dad or grandparent will always back up the mom no matter what, so she wants a judge who will weigh both sides equally. The child also isn’t aware that AI is easily suggestible.

All in all it seems like reasonable compromise?

Re: In Search of AI Psychosis

#117
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also absurdly wrong, and a quote that only a self-identified rationalist could smugly tout. Of course everyone has world models. Otherwise people would wander into traffic like headless chickens, if they'd even be capable of that. What he likely means is that not everyone explicitly things of possibilities in terms of probabilities that are a function of Bayesian updating. That does not imply the absence of worl…

Cows don't walk in to lampposts either, but that's not telling us much. Roughly 4% of the population are said to have aphantasia (lacking a "mind's eye"). Around 10% (numbers vary) don't have an internal monologue. Unfortunately there's almost no research on the consequences of things which many would consider prerequisites for evaluating truth-claims about the world around them, but obviously it's not quite so stark…

You're making so many wild assumptions in this comment without any scientific basis at all.

When does having aphantasia mean someone doesn't have a world model? Ditto for an internal monologue? Also the data on subjective experiences is notoriously flaky. I.e. it's highly likely that many people don't even know what an internal monologue actually means when they do in fact have something approximating that description.

Similarly for aphantasia. In fact, you can see a list of notable people with Aphantasia where you can see it includes professional sportspeople, writers, tech founders etc. I.e. you can have no "minds eye" and still reach the highest heights in our society, again, meaning that the mind is still constructing some model of the world and in fact our own understanding of how our brain works is just incredibly limited and basic.

In my opinion, everyone person has a model of the world (kind of obviously) but our brains are more idiosyncratic when we suppose and we represent things very differently to each other, and there is no "right brain" or "wrong brain".

Re: In Search of AI Psychosis

#118

> First, much like LLMs, lots of people don’t really have world models. This is interesting and something I never considered in a broad sense. I have noticed how the majority of programmers I worked with do not have a mental model of the code or what it describes – it's basically vibing without an LLM, the result accidental. This is fine and perfectly workable. You need only a fraction of devs to purposefully shape t…

You forgot the most important part, one's own model is not only probabilistic, it's also (more or less) forever challenged by reasoning to stabilize to some kind of self consistency. This refinement is critical and its mechanics still eludes everyone AFAIK.

Re: In Search of AI Psychosis

#119
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also absurdly wrong, and a quote that only a self-identified rationalist could smugly tout. Of course everyone has world models. Otherwise people would wander into traffic like headless chickens, if they'd even be capable of that. What he likely means is that not everyone explicitly things of possibilities in terms of probabilities that are a function of Bayesian updating. That does not imply the absence of worl…

Cows don't walk in to lampposts either, but that's not telling us much. Roughly 4% of the population are said to have aphantasia (lacking a "mind's eye"). Around 10% (numbers vary) don't have an internal monologue. Unfortunately there's almost no research on the consequences of things which many would consider prerequisites for evaluating truth-claims about the world around them, but obviously it's not quite so stark…

>Roughly 4% of the population are said to have aphantasia (lacking a "mind's eye"). Around 10% (numbers vary) don't have an internal monologue.

You don't need either of those to have a world model. A world model is a representation of reality that you can use and manipulate to simulate or predict the outcome of your actions. If you are able to discriminate that one of the actions of accepting a $ 1000000 unconditional gift is better than moving in front of a moving train you have a world model.

You can question the sophistication of world models in people — that's essentially what intelligence represents — but not their existence.

Re: In Search of AI Psychosis

#120
post #30

This seems to be touching on an intriguing concept from a classic book on addiction with machine gambling (Addiction by Design by Natasha Schüll) Instead of looking at gambling addictions as personal failing she asserts they are a result between “interaction between the person and the machine.” Similarly here I think there's something more than just the propensity of crazy people to be crazy that was already there, I…

It's the fact that it talks to you. Before this, only people did that. Now something else is doing it. That's going to break some brains.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN