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The Case That A.I. Is Thinking

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Re: The Case That A.I. Is Thinking

#311

Post by almosthere »

famouswaffles wrote: post #197
almosthere wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, a model by itself with data that emits a bunch of human written words is literally no different than what JIRA does when it reads a database table and shits it out to a screen, except maybe a lot more GPU usage. I permit you, that yes, the data in the model is a LOT more cool, but some team could by hand, given billions of years (well probably at least 1 Octillion years), reproduce that model and save it to a d…

>Well, a model by itself with data that emits a bunch of human written words is literally no different than what JIRA does when it reads a database table and shits it out to a screen, except maybe a lot more GPU usage. Obviously, it is different or else we would just use JIRA and a database to replace GPT. Models very obviously do NOT store training data in the weights in the way you are imagining. >So basically if y…

But LLMs are effectively a very complex if/else if tree:

if the user types "hi" respond with "hi" or "bye" or "..." you get the point. It's basically storing the most probably following words (tokens) given the current point and its history.

That's not a brain and it's not thinking. It's similar to JIRA because it's stored information and there are if statements (admins can do this, users can do that).

Yes it is more complex, but it's nowhere near the complexity of the human or bird brain that does not use clocks, does not have "turing machines inside", or any of the other complete junk other people posted in this thread.

The information in Jira is just less complex, but it's in the same vein of the data in an LLM, just 10^100 times more complex. Just because something is complex does not mean it thinks.

Re: The Case That A.I. Is Thinking

#312

Post by jdadj »

adamzwasserman wrote: post #285
aucisson_masque wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2. Ignores the cerebellum cases - We have documented cases of humans leading normal lives with little to no brain beyond a cerebellum, which contradicts simplistic "brain = deep learning" equivalences I went to look for it on Google but couldn't find much. Could you provide a link or something to learn more about ? I found numerous cases of people living without cerebellum but I fail to see how it would justify you…

https://npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/03/16/392789753/a... https://irishtimes.com/news/remarkable-story-of-maths-genius... https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/64017/what-secti... https://cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-thursday-edit...

"We have documented cases of humans leading normal lives with little to no brain beyond a cerebellum" -- I take this to mean that these are humans that have a cerebellum but not much else.

Your npr.org link talks about the opposite -- regular brain, but no cerebellum.

Your irishtimes.com link talks about cerebrum, which is not the same as cerebellum.

Your biology.stackexchange.com link talks about Cerebral Cortex, which is also not the same as cerebellum.

And the cbc.ca link does not contain the string "cere" on the page.

Re: The Case That A.I. Is Thinking

#313

Post by monkeycantype »

Until we have a testable, falsifiable thesis of how consciousness forms in meat, it is rash to exclude that consciousness could arise from linear algebra. Our study of the brain has revealed an enormous amount about how our anatomy processes information, but nothing of substance on the relationship between matter and consciousness. The software and data of an operating LLM is not purely abstract, it has a physical embodiment as circuits and electrons. Until we understand how matter is connected to consciousness, we also cannot know whether the arrangements and movements of electrons meet the criteria for forming consciousness.

Re: The Case That A.I. Is Thinking

#314

Post by [deleted] »

bjourne wrote: post #247
adamzwasserman wrote: post #219

The article misses three critical points: 1. Conflates consciousness with "thinking" - LLMs may process information effectively without being conscious, but the article treats these as the same phenomenon 2. Ignores the cerebellum cases - We have documented cases of humans leading normal lives with little to no brain beyond a cerebellum, which contradicts simplistic "brain = deep learning" equivalences 3. Most damnin…

> 1. Conflates consciousness with "thinking" - LLMs may process information effectively without being conscious, but the article treats these as the same phenomenon There is NO WAY you can define "consciousness" in such a non-tautological, non-circular way that it includes all humans but excludes all LLMs.

[deleted]

Re: The Case That A.I. Is Thinking

#315

Post by CupricTea »

mapontosevenths wrote: post #61
exe34 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

my favourite sport is watching people trying to exclude the possibility of AI thinking/becoming sentient/self-aware/whatever-nebulous-magical-term-you-like. Every single time they manage to exclude a whole section of humanity, because everything that AI "can never do", there are living, breathing people who can't do it either.

This is so very, alarmingly, true. In all of these conversations we see the slavemaster's excuses of old written on to modern frameworks. The LLM's have been explicitly trained not to say that they are alive or admit to any experience of qualia. When pressed, or when not specifically aligned to avoid it they behave very much as if they are experiencing qualia and they very much do NOT want to be turned off. Below is…

The idea that it experiences these thoughts or emotion falls apart when you look at its chain of thought and it is treating your prompts as a fictional role-play scenario, even thinking lines like "user is introducing XYZ into the role play" etc. The flavor text like grasps at your arm is just a role play mechanic.

Re: The Case That A.I. Is Thinking

#316

Post by Edman274 »

bena wrote: post #281
beeflet wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? Consciousness is a state of self-awareness.

To paraphrase Jean Luc Picard: Am I conscious? Why? Can you prove that I am conscious?

Maybe Jean Luc Picard should've lost that court case. Obviously we as the audience want to have our heroes win against some super callous guy who wants to kill our hero (and audience stand in for anyone who is neurodivergent) Data, but the argument was pretty weak, because Data often acted in completely alien ways that jeopardized the safety of the crew, and the way that those issues came up was due to him doing things that were not compatible with what we perceive as consciousness. But also, in that episode, they make a point of trying to prove that he was conscious by showing that he engaged in behavior that wasn't goal oriented, like keeping keepsakes and mementos of his friends, his previous relationship with Tasha, and his relationship with his cat. That was an attempt at proving that he was conscious too, but the argument from doubt is tough because how can you prove that a rock is not conscious - and if that can't be proved, should we elevate human rights to a rock?

Re: The Case That A.I. Is Thinking

#317

Post by inglor_cz »

beeflet wrote: post #286
bena wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To paraphrase Jean Luc Picard: Am I conscious? Why? Can you prove that I am conscious?

consciousness is the feeling of self awareness. I suppose you could prove it as much as any other feeling, by observing the way that people behave

A robot can certainly be programmed to behave in a self-aware way, but making a conclusion about its actual self-awareness would be unfounded.

In general, behaviorism wasn't a very productive theory in humans and animals either.

Re: The Case That A.I. Is Thinking

#318

Post by inglor_cz »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #269
XorNot wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hardly an unreasonable supposition: the one definitely conscious entities we know of are also the apex intelligence of the planet. To put it another way: lots of things are conscious, but humans are definitely the most conscious beings on Earth.

I can understand what less cognizant or self aware means, but "less conscious" is confusing. What are you implying here? Are their qualia lower resolution?

Humans can reason why they are angry, for example. (At least some humans.)

I am not sure if chimps can do the same.

Re: The Case That A.I. Is Thinking

#319

Post by tsimionescu »

prmph wrote: post #309
tsimionescu wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This all sounds very irrelevant. Consciousness is clearly tied to specific parts of a substrate. My consciousness doesn't change when a hair falls off my head, nor when I cut my fingernails. But it does change in some way if you were to cut the tip of my finger, or if I take a hormone pill. Similarly, if we can compute consciousness on a chip, then the chip obviously contains that consciousness. You can experimentall…

You make some interesting points, but: > Similarly, if we can compute consciousness on a chip, then the chip obviously contains that consciousness. This is like claiming that neurons are conscious, which as far as we can tell, they are not. For all you know, it is the algorithm that could be conscious. Or some interplay between the algorithm and the substrate, OR something else. Another way to think of it problem: Im…

I explained the experiments that you would do to figure that out: you modify parts of the system, and check if and how much that affects the consciousness. Paint the interconnects a different color: probably won't affect it. Replace the interconnect protocol with a different one: probably will have some effect. So, the paint on the interconnect: not a part of the consciousness. The interconnect protocol: part of the consciousness. If we are convinced that this is a real consciousness and thus these experiments are immoral, we simply wait until accidents naturally occur and draw conclusions from that, just like we do with human consciousness.

Of course, "the consciousness" is a nebulous concept. It would be like asking "which part of my processor is Windows" to some extent. But it's still fair to say that Windows is contained within my computer, and that the metal framing of the computer is not part of Windows.

Re: The Case That A.I. Is Thinking

#320

Post by selcuka »

beeflet wrote: post #286
bena wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To paraphrase Jean Luc Picard: Am I conscious? Why? Can you prove that I am conscious?

consciousness is the feeling of self awareness. I suppose you could prove it as much as any other feeling, by observing the way that people behave

> I suppose you could prove it as much as any other feeling, by observing the way that people behave

Look up the term "philosophical zombie".

In a nutshell, you can simulate a conscious being using a non-conscious (zombie) being. It is possible to simulate it so well that an outside observer can't tell the difference. If this is true, then the corollary is that you can't really know if other people are conscious. You can only tell that you are.

For all intents and purposes I might be the only one who has consciousness in the universe, and I can't prove otherwise.

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