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'I Worked on Google's AI. My Fears Are Coming True'

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Re: 'I Worked on Google's AI. My Fears Are Coming True'

#231
post #27

Thinking an LLM is sentient because it can depict emotions is like thinking stable diffusion is sentient because it can produce an image of a sad face. Lemoine seems like a very superstitious person.

Imagine the human brain as a black box, it takes in info and outputs info through a mechanism that we barely understand. If a different type of black box has the same capabilities, how do we go about showing that it is or isn't sentient. That is the crux, and stable diffusion is not comparable.

Why is stable diffusion not comparable? It is exactly the same kind of black box, just that its output is in pixels rather than lines of text.

Re: 'I Worked on Google's AI. My Fears Are Coming True'

#232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until there’s a crisp definition that puts human behavior in one bucket and monkeys in another, we have to consider the possibility that both are sentient. Until there’s a crisp definition that puts human behavior in one bucket and dogs in another, we have to consider the possibility that both are sentient. Until there’s a crisp definition that puts human behavior in one bucket and trees in another, we have to consid…

>The burden is not how to disprove that ChatGPT is sentient, the burden is whether it's possible to prove that it is sentient. I assert that humans are not sentient, and that the whole concept of sentience is bullshit. It's a way of saying that humans are somehow special, but without explaining how. The burden is to prove that humans are sentient or that they possess some quality that cannot be replicated by a comput…

I feel they having same feelings with me is the only reason that I care another creatures' feeling.

Re: 'I Worked on Google's AI. My Fears Are Coming True'

#233

CharGPT seems to me as sentient as a book. You could have the most convincing conversation you have ever read, written down within the book. But the book doesn't care about the passing of time, and it can't effect the world except in influencing people to change their behavior.

> it can't effect the world except in influencing people to change their behavior. That "except" also happens to be just about the most dangerous thing humankind has ever dealt with.

Books have done way more damage by influencing humans throughout history than any chatbot (so far). That still doesn't say anything about sentience.

Re: 'I Worked on Google's AI. My Fears Are Coming True'

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who's to say one's subjective experience isn't another's latent space.

what does that mean?

I mean all the mysterious stuff that makes your experience special and subjective is also kicking around somewhere in the execution of say GPT.

Re: 'I Worked on Google's AI. My Fears Are Coming True'

#235
post #108

Chatbots are not sentient. People who even consider this need to get some reading done on philosophy and social sciences, and Reddit does not count. Some AI Models are extremely good at manipulating masses of people, yes, but they are Tools, not Architects. There's people using these tools too manipulate other people. The model itself has no Will, no Desire, no Judgements, no Intention. There might be a day when AI g…

>People who even consider this need to get some reading done on philosophy. Are you perhaps trying to pass off your opinions and beliefs as 'philosophy and social sciences'? People who dismiss this out of hand have a bit more reading to do. Philosophers have been divided for millennia about the definition of sentience and consciousness. Questions like 'Is an earthworm conscious?', 'Can the earth be sentient?' have wi…

> For most definitions of sentience, a tech demo that defeats that definition is on the horizon.

Should have stopped at the line before. You are wayyy overestimating the current state of AI research. This part is simply not happening.

Re: 'I Worked on Google's AI. My Fears Are Coming True'

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what does that mean?

I mean all the mysterious stuff that makes your experience special and subjective is also kicking around somewhere in the execution of say GPT.

The proof of my subjective experience is my subjective experience of it, not the fact that I can complete sentences. So saying chatgpt has consciousness because it can talk is a complete non-sequitor.

Re: 'I Worked on Google's AI. My Fears Are Coming True'

#237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sentience IS poorly defined though. The nature of anything that is poorly defined is inherently poorly defined. The only logical way to discuss a poorly defined concept is to acknowledge that it's not a singular concept and to identify the logic that you actually care about. You cannot draw a line in the sand without recognizing that the concept itself is fictitious and its up to you to draw the line in the way you…

> You cannot draw a line in the sand without recognizing that the concept itself is fictitious and its up to you to draw the line in the way you choose A unified concept of sentience helps us as a society to determine what behavior is allowed regarding a given entity. Given proper discussion on the topic via the means you denounce, a more concise and possibly accurate definition can be had.

I suspect the true answer is that sentience is defined as a spectrum of phenomena ranging from matter that can make some sort of a measurement (like a thermometer) to simple “agents” that have distinct boundaries and a mechanism for controlling that boundary, all the way up to systems like the brain - and perhaps far beyond.

That definition simply doesn’t help you tackle ethical issues in the way you’re presuming- where we can say “this is sentient, that is not”. But it is a possibility.

Re: 'I Worked on Google's AI. My Fears Are Coming True'

#238

Chatbots are not sentient. People who even consider this need to get some reading done on philosophy and social sciences, and Reddit does not count. Some AI Models are extremely good at manipulating masses of people, yes, but they are Tools, not Architects. There's people using these tools too manipulate other people. The model itself has no Will, no Desire, no Judgements, no Intention. There might be a day when AI g…

I can literally say this about you. Not myself obviously, because I know that _I_ exists. However, I have no way of telling that anyone else is. What is different here? The brain is just a bunch of neurons innit?

And I don't believe that the AI is sentient btw.

Re: 'I Worked on Google's AI. My Fears Are Coming True'

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sentience IS poorly defined though. It often just means the ability to perceive and feel, which most vertebrates can in a way we can understand the observe. To the point, though, you are arguing against the most basic concepts of reasoning. If we want to draw a line in the sand of what is sentient and what is not, it involves making a more detailed definition of the word itself. This has been a topic of discussion fo…

> Sentience IS poorly defined though. The nature of anything that is poorly defined is inherently poorly defined. The only logical way to discuss a poorly defined concept is to acknowledge that it's not a singular concept and to identify the logic that you actually care about. You cannot draw a line in the sand without recognizing that the concept itself is fictitious and its up to you to draw the line in the way you…

This whole post is a nothing burger. You're just ranting that everyone don't understand what you are saying or you can't articulate. "I have this idea in mind that is correct but I can't quite write it down or explain to anyone. Anyways, you're wrong!". That is exactly the point of discussing these "vague" concepts; because it is hard. Because when we dig deeper into something that is seemingly obvious, we find many inconsistencies and contradictions. This means that we need to reconcile them somehow, and that is why we talk about them.

You said:

>aware of itself

But that means that someone who is in "the zone" is not sentient while they are deep in their work? This is the kind of small details that people like to think, ponder and write about.

Re: 'I Worked on Google's AI. My Fears Are Coming True'

#240
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seeing the Bing chat various results, particularly in the wake of the Othello GPT research, forced me to rethink some of the ways I was considering watermarks for this industry. I think 'sentience' has been a red herring. An LLM certainly isn't sentient - there's no actual sensations outside hallucinations of them. But from the perspective of Descartes' "I think therefore I am" this does seem capable of generating or…

> there's no actual sensations outside hallucinations This is a horrid baseline to build upon If your brain were to be somehow put inside a jar and you were hooked up to an azure server and the only medium of "sensation" that you/your brain would have would be a chat box.... You would be arguing against your own sentience! The brain like bing/sydney/chat gpt are Blackboxes. I say that Blackboxes which behave in simil…

The difference between a brain in a jar hooked up to a chat box and our current ML models is that a brain can choose to disregard outside prompts and actually generate it's own communication.

ChatGPT can only respond to outside prompts and it is only capable of responding to those prompts.

If you ask it about the meaning of life you will get a response about that.

If you ask it about ice cream it will tell you about ice cream

It will never ask you about your day. It doesn't care who you are. It doesn't want to understand you. A human brain in a jar could do those things though.

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