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Today's AI Isn't Sentient

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Re: Today's AI Isn't Sentient

#61

Post by ben_w »

tsunamifury wrote: post #28
slibhb wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you. LLMs seem to be proof that general intelligence doesn't require sentience. I do think that there is an important moral distinction between sentient beings and not.

We may learn that the great mistake of the enlightenment era was as defining our human worth by our ability to think. This of course has always been cruel to disabled people and we’ve just ignored along with ignoring them. But when the tables turn and humanity is out thought by machines we may reconsider the last 300 years of philosophy.

Would the animal rights movement count as part of the Enlightenment?

I value dogs, even though I'd be very surprised to find one with even a single GCSE passing grade.

Re: Today's AI Isn't Sentient

#62

Post by raldi »

pavlov wrote: post #10
raldi wrote: post #8

This fails the brain-in-vat test. Put mine in one, give it the exact same signals, and I’m still sentient and will experience hunger even without a stomach. Or even without the science fiction: people with amputated limbs frequently report phantom itches on them.

How can you possibly know this? Has your brain been in a vat?

If my brain were receiving exactly the same signals, why would my experience feel any different?

Re: Today's AI Isn't Sentient

#63

Post by raldi »

Nasrudith wrote: post #32
raldi wrote: post #8

This fails the brain-in-vat test. Put mine in one, give it the exact same signals, and I’m still sentient and will experience hunger even without a stomach. Or even without the science fiction: people with amputated limbs frequently report phantom itches on them.

I would disagree with the experience hunger without a stomach part, based on my empirical experiences with remembering being under general anesthesia. I didn't even feel my heartbeat and calmly wondered if I was dead until I came to. Phantom limbs are a thing certainly, but there seems to be a certain amount of dependence upon bodily inputs.

In the scenario I'm describing, the brain inputs would remain the same.

Re: Today's AI Isn't Sentient

#64

Post by grantcas »

jacknews wrote: post #4

meh, this is simply the grounding problem. I agree with the conclusion, but not the reasoning. An AI trained on low level sensory input, rather than words, might well be able to 'feel' hunger. Even so, I think it's correct that current model architectures lack sentience. I think that requires a continuous updating loop of experience, rather than the once-through dream sequence of current models.

[dead]

Re: Today's AI Isn't Sentient

#65

Post by tsunamifury »

ben_w wrote: post #61
tsunamifury wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We may learn that the great mistake of the enlightenment era was as defining our human worth by our ability to think. This of course has always been cruel to disabled people and we’ve just ignored along with ignoring them. But when the tables turn and humanity is out thought by machines we may reconsider the last 300 years of philosophy.

Would the animal rights movement count as part of the Enlightenment? I value dogs, even though I'd be very surprised to find one with even a single GCSE passing grade.

You value dogs based on the intelligence they present to you, it might not be the same as yours, but you enjoy their companionship between the two.

You probably don't have the same feelings toward far simpler organisms.

Re: Today's AI Isn't Sentient

#66

Post by deadeye »

"We can find plenty of examples of intelligent behavior in the animal world that achieve results far better than we could achieve"

It's hard to take this author seriously. Most animals live in their own feces, while man has sent people to the moon and back.

The push to anthropomorphize animals really needs to stop amongst serious people.

Re: Today's AI Isn't Sentient

#67

Post by raldi »

0xfeba wrote: post #50
raldi wrote: post #8

This fails the brain-in-vat test. Put mine in one, give it the exact same signals, and I’m still sentient and will experience hunger even without a stomach. Or even without the science fiction: people with amputated limbs frequently report phantom itches on them.

I don't think you can generalize it like that. Hunger comes from signals originating in your stomach. Without a stomach, you're brain would lose energy -- and I'd wager the symptoms would be more like oxygen deprivation than "hunger".

Why would the symptoms feel any different if my brain were receiving the exact same signals?

Re: Today's AI Isn't Sentient

#68

Post by tcgv »

First, there is no universally agreed-upon test to measure sentience. So I don't see much value in debating whether LLMs are sentient or not... but they aren't ;)

Second, the similarity of deterministic algorithms' outputs to what humans consider expressions of sentient beings is not an argument in favor of LLMs being sentient. It's just like arguing that a magic trick must be real because it looks so much like the real thing and not a trick.

Re: Today's AI Isn't Sentient

#69

Post by mewpmewp2 »

> Artificial general intelligence (AGI) is the term used to describe an artificial agent that is at least as intelligent as a human in all the many ways a human displays (or can display) intelligence. It’s what we used to call artificial intelligence, until we started creating programs and devices that were undeniably “intelligent,” but in limited domains—playing chess, translating language, vacuuming our living rooms.

Source that AI ever meant that the requirement is to perform better than human in all areas?

> One of the essential characteristics of general intelligence is “sentience,” the ability to have subjective experiences—to feel what it’s like, say, to experience hunger, to taste an apple, or to see red. Sentience is a crucial step on the road to general intelligence.

Also source for that. Why would sentience be required?

I don't think current AI is sentient, but I don't think requirement for AGI would be sentience, or it being necessary for intelligence.

Re: Today's AI Isn't Sentient

#70

Post by mewpmewp2 »

JaggedJax wrote: post #27

To me a more important part of sentience is a continuous existence. Today's AI is still very discrete. It exists and then it does not, repeated. Even large window sizes are still just discrete calculations before the model goes back to sleep. A mostly always-on streaming style architecture where the model is continuously fed input and sensory data and always processing it, whether or not it is being asked a question,…

But are you still you after all the atoms, molecules in your body have changed throughout the life. In fact are you, still you every other second?

And if you are the structure of atoms/molecules, and you were cloned, would whoever was cloned be you?

Majority of what you have made up would be replaced within few decades.

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