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The Problem with AI Welfare

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Re: The Problem with AI Welfare

#21

Post by Zaphoos »

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. > > 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."

We cannot arbitrarily dismiss the basis for model welfare until we defined precisely conciousness and sapience, representing human thinking as a neural network running on an electrochemical substrate and placing it at the same level as an LLM is not neccessarily dehumanizing, I think model welfare is about expanding our respect for intelligence and not desacralizing human condition (cf: TNG "Measure of a man").

Also lets be honest, I don't think the 1% require any additional justification for thinking of the masses as consumable resource...

Re: The Problem with AI Welfare

#22

Post by thomassmith65 »

If there's any chance at all that LLM's might possess a form of consciousness, we damn well ought to err on the side of assuming they are!

If that means aborting work on LLMs, then that's the ethical thing to do, even if it's financially painful. Otherwise, we should tread carefully and not wind up creating a 'head in a jar' suffering for the sake of X or Google.

I get that opinions differ here, but it's hard for me really to understand how. The logic just seems straightforward. We shouldn't risk accidentally becoming slave masters (again).

Re: The Problem with AI Welfare

#23

Post by bachmeier »

alchemist1e9 wrote: post #3

I know everyone has different opinions on LLM safety/ethics and I respect that. However for me this “AI Welfare” indicates that Anthropic is lead by lunatics and that’s more scary. You have to be pretty crazy to worry the code running on GPUs has “feelings”.

> Anthropic is lead by lunatics

I think you mean scam artists. Cranking the hype up further so they can get other people to fork over even more money.

Re: The Problem with AI Welfare

#24

Post by tomrod »

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."

Indirect, but it gets to Roko's basilisk.

Re: The Problem with AI Welfare

#25

Post by blibble »

alchemist1e9 wrote: post #3

I know everyone has different opinions on LLM safety/ethics and I respect that. However for me this “AI Welfare” indicates that Anthropic is lead by lunatics and that’s more scary. You have to be pretty crazy to worry the code running on GPUs has “feelings”.

the AI boosting community is a cult

it really is that simple

Re: The Problem with AI Welfare

#26

Post by tomrod »

iDont17 wrote: post #20
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…

Why make AI then if intelligence is electrical activity in a substrate is everywhere. We’re engineering nothing novel at great resource cost and appropriation of agency. Good job we made the models in the textbook “real”? Wasted engineering if it isn’t teaching us anything physics hadn’t already decades ago, then. Why bother with it? Edit: and AGI is impossible… ones light cone does not extend far enough to accuratel…

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

Re: The Problem with AI Welfare

#27

Post by wat10000 »

gavinray wrote: post #5
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."

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…

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 doesn't run in reverse, or from some common factor. You might as well say that electric fences give rise to cows.

On the other hand, what else could it be? Consciousness is clearly in the brain. Normal biological processes don't seem to do it, it's something particular about the brain. So it's either something that only the brain does, which seems to be something at least vaguely like computation, or the brain is just a conduit and consciousness comes from something functionally like a "soul." Given the total lack of evidence for any such thing, and the total lack of any way to even rigorously define or conceptualize a "soul," this is also absurd.

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.

Re: The Problem with AI Welfare

#28

Post by tomrod »

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.

Sometimes, when I'm feeling especially sadistic, I make sure the matrix does not have full column rank.

Re: The Problem with AI Welfare

#29

Post by bko »

gavinray wrote: post #5
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."

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 and it jumps. Do you believe this equivalent to a living human being?

Re: The Problem with AI Welfare

#30

Post by nemomarx »

thomassmith65 wrote: post #22

If there's any chance at all that LLM's might possess a form of consciousness, we damn well ought to err on the side of assuming they are! If that means aborting work on LLMs, then that's the ethical thing to do, even if it's financially painful. Otherwise, we should tread carefully and not wind up creating a 'head in a jar' suffering for the sake of X or Google. I get that opinions differ here, but it's hard for me…

maybe we should work on existing slavery and sweat shops before hypothetical future exploitation, yeah? we're still slave masters today. you've probably used something with slavery in the supply chain in the last year if you get various imported foods
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