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Richard Dawkins and The Claude Delusion: The great skeptic gets taken in

garymarcus.substack.com

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Re: Richard Dawkins and The Claude Delusion: The great skeptic gets taken in

#61

Post by dpark »

habitue wrote: post #23

I am confused about why Gary Marcus thinks it's so obvious that Claude isn't conscious. As he points out, Dawkins is just taking a bog-standard behaviorist position: that he can't distinguish Claude from a conscious being just by the behavior here. Marcus is saying "Well, if you knew they were trained to mimic, then you'd understand it's just mimicry and not real consciousness" The problem with this argument is that…

Gary Marcus here is making an argument about souls and just doesn't realize it. You could rewrite this whole post replacing "consciousness" with "soul" and it would flow almost the same.

He handwaves consciousness as "internal states" as if that means anything and as if an LLM has no internal state. (This seems to be the analog for "divine touch".) He can't define consciousness rigorously, partly because we don't at all understand consciousness, but also because any attempt to do so would allow a scientific response.

Re: Richard Dawkins and The Claude Delusion: The great skeptic gets taken in

#63

Post by cv5005 »

codeulike wrote: post #34
LeCompteSftware wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The broader point Marcus is making is that ignoring arguments based on causality and plausibility goes against decades of Dawkins's philosophical atheism. Why not believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Reality is consistent with its existence. It is extremely implausible that Claude is the only conscious entity on Earth which does not have desires or motivations or any understanding of its own reality. It only does…

Turing test was definitely and conclusively refuted in the 1960s Are you sure? Understood properly, Turings Imitation game aka the turing test, should be adversarial. That is, the player should be asking hard questions to try and discover who is who, not just having an idle chat. No chatbot has been able to consistently pass an adversarial Turing Test until the rise of LLMs The Imitation Game: https://www.cs.ox.ac.uk…

Yeah I dont think a single current LLM would fool me in a turing test - I would obiously use all kinds of prompt injection techniques, ask about 'dangerous' or controversial topics, ask about random niche facts in varied fields, etc.

Re: Richard Dawkins and The Claude Delusion: The great skeptic gets taken in

#64

Post by imiric »

gumgumpost wrote: post #48
imiric wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> your extreme atheists aren't much different from your extreme believers; they both have strong beliefs about things they can't prove, and for some reason want to go off on them. You have a mistaken understanding of what atheism is. It is not a belief in anything, but an absence of belief in a deity. > there are a whole lot of things that we all go around everyday "not believing." Sure, and yet theism is part of 75%…

>You have a mistaken understanding of what atheism is. It is not a belief in anything, but an absence of belief in a deity. I consider that to also be a wrongly held position, because you'd need proof either way. So atheists are just making a bet. I think agnostic is the most valid position as far as I am concerned, lacking proof of one or the other. I do not know. We can get into technicalities as well. What exactly…

> I consider that to also be a wrongly held position, because you'd need proof either way.

Proof that something doesn't exist? Ever heard of Russel's teapot?

The burden of proof is on the claimer.

> What exactly do we mean by God?

Absurd question. Pick up any holy book, or ask any believer. An atheist is simply a person who doesn't hold those beliefs.

A famous Dawkins quote is apt in this discussion:

> We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.

> Having certainty something that can be perceived as God by believers cannot exist in our universe is in the end a belief, with no proof.

Again, you're mistaking what atheism is. It's not being certain that a deity cannot exist—it's not having any reason to think that it does.

People who claim certainty in either direction are equally delusional. The problem is when a belief crosses into realms of reality, defines the identity and culture of people, and influences the rest of society. Based on history and personal experience, theists are far more prone to this than atheists.

Re: Richard Dawkins and The Claude Delusion: The great skeptic gets taken in

#65

Post by luke5441 »

Klayy wrote: post #43
luke5441 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wise man Nassim Taleb who voted for Trump to help Palestinians and now Gaza and 10% increasing of the country he was born in is rubble. Maybe the lesson is that all those public intellectuals are not that wise and we should follow people more that stay in their lane.

do you have a source for the claim that he voted for Trump?

He hinted at it on twitter. But looking now claims he voted for a third party candidate ( https://x.com/nntaleb/status/1910066542399967268 ) . Doesn't make it much better because of the first-past the post voting system. Also he has a bit of influence and when he hints Trump is better on the Palestine issue, people might make this influence their decision ( https://x.com/nntaleb/status/1841515651820576902 ).

Re: Richard Dawkins and The Claude Delusion: The great skeptic gets taken in

#66

Post by luke5441 »

novemp wrote: post #56
Klayy wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

do you have a source for the claim that he voted for Trump?

A few high-profile Muslims spoke out against Harris. This means every Muslim American voted for Trump. Obviously.

He's a Lebanese Greek Orthodox Christian, not a Muslim.

Re: Richard Dawkins and The Claude Delusion: The great skeptic gets taken in

#67

Post by munksbeer »

gumgumpost wrote: post #39
peterlk wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think everyone should avoid talking about consciousness unless someone in the conversation provides a clear definition of it. If no one provides a definition, we can replace the word “consciousness” with the word “spirit”, and basically nothing about the conversation would change. Without a definition, every conversation about AI consciousness devolves into one camp saying that humans are special and consciousness…

>we could define consciousness We cannot. And our definitions mean nothing to reality. We can all define something as something else, means nothing to how it behaves. But ultimately, as I said in a previous comment, we have no choice but to agree or not. It cannot be tested, in any way, that makes it absolutely certain, because it's a logical issue. We cannot even have certainty anyone else but ourselves even is cons…

>The issue with defining it is someone could potentially find a way to make a machine that mimics it but works nothing like a consciousness generating brain does. So, if it meets our definition criteria, is that conscious? Where's the certainty? How do we prove it is?

This sentence of yours makes me think you've missed the point of the post you're replying to.

Unless you're actually agreeing with them, but I can't tell.

Re: Richard Dawkins and The Claude Delusion: The great skeptic gets taken in

#68

Post by munksbeer »

vehemenz wrote: post #50
peterlk wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think everyone should avoid talking about consciousness unless someone in the conversation provides a clear definition of it. If no one provides a definition, we can replace the word “consciousness” with the word “spirit”, and basically nothing about the conversation would change. Without a definition, every conversation about AI consciousness devolves into one camp saying that humans are special and consciousness…

If you're willing to reduce metaphysical questions to definitions (which I'm basically on board with), then the stakes aren't that high in the first place, so we should carry on using "consciousness" in its everyday sense because there's no precious reason to avoid it.

>so we should carry on using "consciousness" in its everyday sense because there's no precious reason to avoid it.

What is the everyday sense of the word?

Re: Richard Dawkins and The Claude Delusion: The great skeptic gets taken in

#69

Post by jrm4 »

luke5441 wrote: post #20
jrm4 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think so, personally. I wouldn't bank a lot on "the soul" per se, but Dawkins is absolutely one of those "smart but not wise" people. I imagine people don't dig it because it can be woo and vibey, but the older I get the more I understand the value of the "imprecise" metaphysical/religious/etc whatever you want to call it. Someone in this space who handles this very well , unlike Dawkins, is Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

Wise man Nassim Taleb who voted for Trump to help Palestinians and now Gaza and 10% increasing of the country he was born in is rubble. Maybe the lesson is that all those public intellectuals are not that wise and we should follow people more that stay in their lane.

Yeah, I'll grant you that one. I don't think he necessarily voted for Trump, and for me he did a good job of explaining Trump's appeal.

But also, there is some sadly common brand of stupid that Taleb fell victim to when it came to thinking about Harris v. Trump on matters in the Middle East.

Re: Richard Dawkins and The Claude Delusion: The great skeptic gets taken in

#70

Post by jrm4 »

willmarch wrote: post #17
jrm4 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Op said "accepting," not proving. And the older I get, this does make sense to me. Belief in a soul doesn't really require proof for me. I understand that this may not be satisfying in an academic way for some, but "humans have souls and machines probably don't" strikes me as the wisest default position until we have some other very strong proof otherwise.

What evidence is there for humans having souls to support your "wisest default"? What would constitute "strong proof otherwise" in the case of machines? Wouldn't the wise position be that since there is no evidence of souls at all that the default should be that both humans and machines do not contain a soul until proven otherwise?

Not to me. The wise position starts from "Humans are mysterious, but I am one and I see that others are like me, so I think we have souls." along with "I get what a machine is from first principles and based on all I know, they don't feel."

I get that this isn't as rigorous as one might like, but I think in the real world it's wise.

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