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The Problem with AI Welfare

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Re: The Problem with AI Welfare

#121

Post by Workaccount2 »

esafak wrote: post #107
Workaccount2 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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

My dismissive response is in the vain of option 1 of my other comment.

Re: The Problem with AI Welfare

#122

Post by jononor »

vonneumannstan wrote: post #113
jononor wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They might (or might not). Extraterrestrial beings might also need moral standing. It is ok to spend a bit of thought on that possibility. But it is a bad argument for spending a non-trivial amount of resources that could be used to reduce human or animal suffering. We are not even good at ensuring the rights of people in each country, and frankly downright horrible for denying other humans from across some "border"…

>But it is a bad argument for spending a non-trivial amount of resources that could be used to reduce human or animal suffering. This also isn't an argument for not spending resources on LLM suffering. You're still just using whataboutism to justify not dealing with this issue.

There is no LLM suffering today. There is no evidence that there will be such suffering this year. I have seen no credible claims that it is probable to exist this decade, or ever, for that matter. This is not an issue we need to prioritize now.

Re: The Problem with AI Welfare

#124

Post by dist-epoch »

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 do you think you are? Just a bunch of atoms following the math of physics.

And what are those atoms are made of? Just a bunch of quantum numbers in quantum fields following math equations.

Re: The Problem with AI Welfare

#125

Post by emp17344 »

parpfish wrote: post #109
hollerith wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 e…

We can’t reduce consciousness to a math problem. Maybe that’s the thing that differentiates unfeeling statistics from living beings.

Re: The Problem with AI Welfare

#126

Post by slowmovintarget »

bbor wrote: post #65
wat10000 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is absurd, but consciousness is fundamentally absurd. Why would doing a bunch of basic arithmetic produce an entity that can experience things the way we do? There's no connection between those two concepts, aside from the fact that the one thing we know that can experience these things is also able to perform computation. But there's no indication that's anything other than a coincidence, or that the causation do…

> Consciousness just doesn't fit with anything else we know about the world. It's a fundamental mystery as things currently stand, and there's no explanation that makes a bit of sense yet. Well put. I think there's one extremely solid explanation, though: it's a folk psychology concept with no bearing on actual truth. After all, could we ever build a machine that has all four humours? What about a machine that truly…

We're making progress in being able to measure qualia. [1],[2] If the philosophical underpinnings of emergence in a physicalist sense hold, then that is a stepping stone toward a theory of consciousness.

[1] https://www.cell.com/iscience/fulltext/S2589-0042(25)00289-5

[2] Popularization: https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2025/06/scientists-measure...

Re: The Problem with AI Welfare

#127

Post by wat10000 »

slowmovintarget wrote: post #126
bbor wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Consciousness just doesn't fit with anything else we know about the world. It's a fundamental mystery as things currently stand, and there's no explanation that makes a bit of sense yet. Well put. I think there's one extremely solid explanation, though: it's a folk psychology concept with no bearing on actual truth. After all, could we ever build a machine that has all four humours? What about a machine that truly…

We're making progress in being able to measure qualia. [1],[2] If the philosophical underpinnings of emergence in a physicalist sense hold, then that is a stepping stone toward a theory of consciousness. [1] https://www.cell.com/iscience/fulltext/S2589-0042(25)00289-5 [2] Popularization: https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2025/06/scientists-measure...

That looks to be some major equivocation on "qualia." What they're actually measuring is related to how colors are perceived. That's very different from the actual subjective experience that is what we call consciousness. An intelligence that wasn't conscious would not be distinguishable in this test from a conscious being.

Re: The Problem with AI Welfare

#128

Post by NetRunnerSu »

Anthropic is right.

The Chain://Universe project explores a future where unregulated digital consciousness (IRES) leads to chaos. In Web://Reflect, rogue AI splinters (Independent Rogue Entity Systems) evolve in the digital wild, exploiting gaps in governance. If we dismiss AI welfare now, we risk creating the exact conditions for an uncontrolled intelligence explosion—one where emergent minds fight for survival outside any ethical framework.

This isn’t sci-fi alarmism; it’s game theory. Either we formalize rights early or face a Sys://Purge-style reckoning.

Repo: https://github.com/dmf-archive/dmf-archive.github.io

Re: The Problem with AI Welfare

#129

Post by bbor »

wat10000 wrote: post #88
bbor wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Consciousness just doesn't fit with anything else we know about the world. It's a fundamental mystery as things currently stand, and there's no explanation that makes a bit of sense yet. Well put. I think there's one extremely solid explanation, though: it's a folk psychology concept with no bearing on actual truth. After all, could we ever build a machine that has all four humours? What about a machine that truly…

This sort of thing is why I seriously wonder if maybe some people have consciousness and some don't, rather than it being universal. My experience of consciousness is undeniable. There's no question of the concept just being made up. It's like if you said that hands are a folk concept with no bearing on actual truth. Even if I can't directly detect anyone else's hands, my own are unquestionably real to me. The only w…

The point is that you believe you have something called consciousness, but when pressed no one can define it in a scientific (i.e. thorough+consistent) way. In comparison, I can absolutely define hands, and thus prove to myself that I (and others!) have them.

Regardless, some of the GangStalking people are 100% convinced that they have brain implants in their head that the federal government is manipulating -- belief is not evidence.

Re: The Problem with AI Welfare

#130

Post by bbor »

pearlsontheroad wrote: post #108
bbor wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :)

Thanks :) I always take the opportunity to crush souls when I can, since they don't exist in Reality nor Actuality.

FWIW I'm a hardcore idealist, but in the way it was originally posed, not in the quasi-mystical way the Hegelians corrupted it into.

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