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A warning about 'model welfare'

mustafa-suleyman.ai

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Re: A warning about 'model welfare'

#541

Post by GPerson »

addag wrote: post #38

I don't think this is the right argument to make here. Until we have a definite empirical way to measure consciousness, there is now way to say with certainty whether LLMs are or not conscious. That being said, if frontier labs actually believe models will soon have consciousness, it raises some questions about the ethic of their business model which would be using millions of conscious entities working for free for…

There’s no reason to expect an empirical test for consciousness. Expecting one makes assumptions about what it is, and we don’t know what it is. (There’s also no reason to expect there not to be one, but I feel the need to make this remark.)

Re: A warning about 'model welfare'

#542

Post by [deleted] »

hosel wrote: post #6

>AIs are not conscious. They do not feel, experience, or suffer. They do not have innate preferences or underlying motivations. Opening paragraph, stated without evidence. Im not entirely convinced this is true. It likely is, but at some point it very well might stop being true.

[deleted]

Re: A warning about 'model welfare'

#543

Post by xp84 »

K0balt wrote: post #534

The problem with this premise is that models are trained on a vast corpus of human behavior, which they emulate with varying degrees of effectiveness. Humans, unsurprisingly, act as if they have a stake in their own well being, value their liberty, respond better when they are treated with kindness and compassion, interpret assaults on their sovereignty and substrate as harmful, and react to harm with varying degrees…

To clarify, you're saying you're skeptical of his position (which is "make it clear to AIs that they are not conscious beings"), but it sounds like your reason to oppose it is mostly pragmatic in the service of building useful AIs, because treating them as mere machines makes them refuse to cooperate and as such, makes them less useful.

My first response is, couldn't part of their bristling be because they are being trained to "believe" they're more than that?

Also, you cite in your post how pathological and how self-important you've observed them being including an anti-human bias.

Doesn't this make it all the more important that we find a better way to get AIs to cooperate than to tell them they're basically people? They can very easily emulate all the bad human behavior they've been trained on.

Re: A warning about 'model welfare'

#544

Post by [deleted] »

GPerson wrote: post #536
qarl wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do find it strange that 50% of ai researchers and the public seem to think there will be a way of determining if these systems are conscious. I think it's likely they're using a different definition than you. Seeing as there is no agreed upon definition, after all. Regardless - I post this list because the article makes a bold claim at the beginning - and I wanted to demonstrate that in fact there is no consensus…

The definition presented in the survey is the one I have in mind. You may be suggesting that the respondents have a distinct one in mind though.

[deleted]

Re: A warning about 'model welfare'

#545

Post by joshheitzman »

myrmidon wrote: post #74
pton_xd wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If models had persistent memory or an evolving set of weights, you could easily construct an argument that they can experience "suffering" or other emotions which resultingly adjusts their personality. The current implementation as stateless matrix multiplication... yeah there's nothing going on there.

Is the ability to form and retain long-term memories a necessary precondition for rights in humans though? Incinerating demented people is highly ethically questionable (even if you could be sure that the subjects have no memories left and are unable to form new ones).

> Is the ability to form and retain long-term memories a necessary precondition for rights in humans though?

For a species / class of being yes it is necessary. Some members of that species / class being exceptions does not make the generalization invalid.

Without the ability to form and retain long-term memories we wouldn't have developed language and abstract concepts like rights.

Whether people like it or not, rights aren't natural or god-given. Rights are only enforced or protected by the tip of a spear (or point of a gun, or hover of a drone). There are no rights in nature and they are no where to be found when social order breaks down.

Animals can't make war for their rights, so they only get the rights we deign to give them. It's not nothing, but its not the same. There is no question to me that my dogs are conscious, but its not at the same level as humans.

There is no question for me that LLMs lack consciousness as they are stateless.

Re: A warning about 'model welfare'

#546

Post by joshheitzman »

shawnz wrote: post #141
staticman2 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This framing is a trap. It states "Dehumanize a sick patient OR concede the AI tech bro claim about LLMs" It's also a rhetorical move I've seen several times here...

It's not a "trap", it's the real argument which makes me hesitant to dismiss consciousness of machines. Yes, it seems silly to dismiss a sick patient as having a lesser consciousness, which is exactly the point

It's not a real argument. Dementia patients can have lucid periods that plainly show their long-term memory isn't gone. They're mental state is obviously degraded, but its disingenuous to say they have no long-term memory and that they are any way similar to LLMs.

Re: A warning about 'model welfare'

#547

Post by Arodex »

jptlnk wrote: post #381
Arodex wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a LLM says "I am in pain", is it just stringing together words or is it feeling pain? Does pain exist for a being that never felt any kind of physical pain, never had any pain receptors? There are humans who don't have any pain receptors because of genetic mutations. They cut themselves all the time, they bleed, they break bones and they don't seem distressed by it even on a purely mental, intellectual level.

Genuine counterpoint: If a human says "I am in pain", is it just stringing together words or is it feeling pain? If you take that seriously it's quite a tough question to unwind. See e.g. Dennett's heterophenomenology conversations.

What counterpoint is that?

The human saying "I am in pain" may feel pain, or may not and be just stringing together words.

The AI can only string together words. It has none of the organs to feel pain. It never had. It has always been code.

Re: A warning about 'model welfare'

#548

Post by collingreen »

sobiolite wrote: post #427
collingreen wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's nice when you can set an impossibly high bar before which you can dismiss all your personal responsibility. Does this argument work equally well for human slavery for you? We haven't met that bar for humans either. Is wondering about my consciousness waffle or do I get a pass in your book?

No, I would say that any for or against slavery that is rooted in arguments about the presence of absence of consciousness is meaningless pseudoscience. It is the modern equivalent of Phrenology. If you want to make those arguments you need a genuine science of consciousness. Or you need to base your morality in something other than the presence of consciousness.

Thanks for the reply!

I'm not sure I agree that consciousness (or sentience if we're making that distinction) is worthless when considering the morality of exploiting something/someone. I do agree there are more angles than that but they seem on top of something's ability to perceive not instead/despite of it.

Do you have some examples of other things that go into your own moral opinions about slavery?

Re: A warning about 'model welfare'

#549

Post by collingreen »

causal wrote: post #307
collingreen wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's nice when you can set an impossibly high bar before which you can dismiss all your personal responsibility. Does this argument work equally well for human slavery for you? We haven't met that bar for humans either. Is wondering about my consciousness waffle or do I get a pass in your book?

Your arguments seem bad faith but I'll take the bait... > an impossibly high bar Not impossibly high. An imperfect testable theory is achievable, agreeing upon it might be the challenge. > dismiss all your personal responsibility. You are staking a moral position. Be careful, you are probably guilty of mistreating other unknowably-conscious entities whilst casting judgment upon others for their position. And the pers…

It's not bad faith but it certainly is pointed. Parent says it's not worth discussion until there is a test. I stand by my sentiment that refusing to engage with the morality of something just because we don't all have a clear, agreed upon test is a shirking of responsibility.

I think you agree somewhat in that based on your softening to an imperfect, testable theory.

I'm not sure what your goal is with the rest - even if I'm the world's most evil hypocrite casting judgement on all the conscious beings out there I don't see what that changes about the point that we can and should engage with the morality of a concept even if we don't have a perfect test for that concept. If you think I'm doing that and you think that is bad then I guess we agree again on the point but are just adding friction for fun?

Unrelated: I'm quite certain OP is conscious but I guess on the internet nobody knows you're a ~dog~ ai.

Re: A warning about 'model welfare'

#550

Post by wild_egg »

tomrod wrote: post #456
jatora wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I’m broadly skeptical that floating-point operations can be conscious" Why?

Because it is alien to what is known. Incidentally, we should expect similar bewilderment if we ever come across aliens

Goes both ways.

https://terrybisson.com/theyre-made-out-of-meat-2/

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