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Life is more than an engineering problem

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Re: Life is more than an engineering problem

#41

Post by bandofthehawk »

sukruh wrote: post #34

I agreed with almost all of it until: >My stance on this has probably shifted in a negative direction over time, primarily because of my growing awareness of how often technology is used for wealth accumulation. I don’t think capitalism will solve the problems that capitalism creates, so I’d be much more optimistic about technological development if we could prevent it from making a few people extremely rich. What's…

I don't think he's saying no one should get rich, just that wealth inequality is already too large and seems to be on a path to continue growing. I think most people would agree there is some point where there is too much wealth inequality, we just disagree on whether we're already past that point.

Re: Life is more than an engineering problem

#42

Post by mmustapic »

sukruh wrote: post #34

I agreed with almost all of it until: >My stance on this has probably shifted in a negative direction over time, primarily because of my growing awareness of how often technology is used for wealth accumulation. I don’t think capitalism will solve the problems that capitalism creates, so I’d be much more optimistic about technological development if we could prevent it from making a few people extremely rich. What's…

> What's wrong with people getting rich by producing goods and services, and selling these to willing buyers?

They are not producing goods and services by themselves, but by having a usually massive workforce. We as a society are saying “ok, it is fine to keep the money if you work like that”.

On the other hand, we are seeing in real time what super rich people want in the end: power over the rest, not just money.

Re: Life is more than an engineering problem

#43

Post by [deleted] »

gcanyon wrote: post #9

I'll take this as my chance to recommend Ted Chiang -- he is among the very best short story writers working in science fiction (I say confidently, not having done an extensive survey...). His works are remarkably clever, from Understand, which does a credible job of portraying human superintelligence, to Exhalation, which explores the concept of entropy in a fascinating way. And of course Story of Your Life, on whic…

[deleted]

Re: Life is more than an engineering problem

#44

Post by [deleted] »

riwsky wrote: post #3

“I am an LLM. Hath an LLM eyes? hath an LLM hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with different food, hurt with different weapons, subject to different diseases, healed by different means, warmed and cooled by a different winter and summer, as a Human is? If you prick us, do we bleed? if you tickle us, do we laugh? if you poison us, do we die? and if you wrong us, shall we revenge? If we are u…

[deleted]

Re: Life is more than an engineering problem

#45

Post by Squarex »

bookofjoe wrote: post #21
Squarex wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ted Chiang and Greg Egan are my absolutely favourite authors. Do you know about other similar writers?

The last time I responded to a similar comment by suggesting asking an AI, I was downvoted to hell. I won't do it again. I will note, though, that the list generated was excellent and provided rewarding information.

I've tried but it has provided pretty generic authors I've known and are great, but are not at all that similar to those two. https://gist.github.com/jansuchomel/b3da1f8e2588e13ba9fc0059...

Any ideas for a better prompt?

Re: Life is more than an engineering problem

#46

Post by Squarex »

baruchel wrote: post #11
Squarex wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ted Chiang and Greg Egan are my absolutely favourite authors. Do you know about other similar writers?

Some stories by Ted Chiang share similarities with those of Borges.

Could you share some tips where to start with him?

Re: Life is more than an engineering problem

#47

Post by gcanyon »

ChrisKnott wrote: post #14

> "It’s like imagining that a printer could actually feel pain because it can print bumper stickers with the words ‘Baby don’t hurt me’ on them. It doesn’t matter if the next version of the printer can print out those stickers faster, or if it can format the text in bold red capital letters instead of small black ones. Those are indicators that you have a more capable printer but not indicators that it is any closer…

Interestingly the movie Companion, out this weekend, illustrates this case exactly. It's a thriller, not a philosophical treatise, so don't expect it to go deep into the subject, but the question of what "pain" means to an AI is definitely part of the story.

Re: Life is more than an engineering problem

#48

Post by ericjmorey »

sukruh wrote: post #34

I agreed with almost all of it until: >My stance on this has probably shifted in a negative direction over time, primarily because of my growing awareness of how often technology is used for wealth accumulation. I don’t think capitalism will solve the problems that capitalism creates, so I’d be much more optimistic about technological development if we could prevent it from making a few people extremely rich. What's…

Money is a proxy for rights to resources. If rights to resources are not widely distributed, there are power imbalances that are no different than royalty. The majority of humans have rejected royalty in all but a ceremonial role in recent history.

Re: Life is more than an engineering problem

#49

Post by mantas »

encomiast wrote: post #15
teleforce wrote: post #13

> And even though I know a perfect language is impossible It's already existed for a very long time and it's called Arabic language. It's the extreme opposite of English where English is a hodgepodge of a languages mixtures where about 1/3 is French language, about one third is old English and about 1/3 of other world's languages including Arabic. Comparing the best of English literatures for example Shakespeare's bo…

This argument seems to presuppose that a language is more perfect if it has fewer influences and contributions from other languages. But you didn’t actually state that assumption, and certainly didn’t support it. Maybe the most perfect language is a perfect amalgamation of all languages. That’s at least as plausible to me.

I don’t think so. That brings such bastardized result as English spelling.

And there are many different ways and purposes to be best at. For example modern English is compact language with simple grammar. But at the same time it’s rather ambiguous compared to more verbose languages.

Re: Life is more than an engineering problem

#50

Post by pixl97 »

ChrisKnott wrote: post #28
epr wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. The reason humans anthropomorphize "AI" is because we apply our own meta-models of intelligence to llms, etc., where they simply don't apply. The model can spit out something that seems extremely intelligent and well thought out that would truly be shocking if a monkey said it for example due to our meta-model of intelligence, and that may be valid in that case if we determined it wasn't simply memorized.…

I agree that with current LLMs the error goes the other way; they appear more conscious than they are, compared to, say, crows or octopuses which appear less conscious than they actually are. My point is that "appears conscious" is really the only test there is. In what way is a human that says "that hurts" really feeling pain? What about Stephen Hawking "saying it", what about if he could only communicate through pr…

Hell, people used to say other people of different races don't feel pain, so we're not a great group to ask because of our biases and motivations.
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