6 ms·

And the opposite? What if the world is full of people like who you claim that the machine is pretending to be conscious, and is only “quacking like consciousnes

And the opposite? What if the world is full of people like who you claim that the machine is pretending to be conscious, and is only “quacking like consciousness”? Would you be okay not affording a conscious thing rights?

coldtea 3y ago
>Would you be okay not affording a conscious thing rights? Sure.
- criddell 3y ago
  Do you have any concerns about causing suffering to other conscious entities? Should they have concerns about causing you to suffer?
  - coldtea 3y ago
    >Do you have any concerns about causing suffering to other conscious entities? Nope, if they are AI I'm fine with it. >Should they have concerns about causing you to suffer? If they are not causing me to suffer, then I couldn't care less whether they have concerns about causing me to suffer or not. And it would matter even less whether they have concerns about it or not, if they do cause me to suffer. I'd be more concerned about billions of humans suffering from lots of BS reasons (political opression, war, hunger, etc) than I'd even start considering being concerned about AI.
- chasd00 3y ago
  Please devise a consciousness test and then convince us you pass it ;) /it’s not as easy as it sounds
  - coldtea 3y ago
    Don't have to. We already have rights for humans. Even unconscious humans (e.g. people in a coma on some hospital bed). So we don't have to base it on consciousness, the existing basis (we're humans, so we favor ourselves with rights) is enough.
    - myrmidon 3y ago
      > we're humans, so we favor ourselves with rights This is hands down the most ethically questionable argument I've heard in a long time. Arguing that human rights are only granted out of self-interest is not even a slippery slope-- that's basically a waterslide into pre-1900 racism: After all, what's stopping you from splitting humanity across easily identifiable features (skull shape, skin color, etc), and then denying basic rights to that subgroup because you're not part of it? There is also a gigantic mismatch with current common ethical standards: Animals are afforded some rights ("no cruelty"), which a large part of humanity strongly agrees with-- even though they don't self-identify as cattle. Denying rights to AIs with human level cognitive capabilities would thus be very likely to be perceived as unethical by a large part of our population.
      - coldtea 3y ago
        >Arguing that human rights are only granted out of self-interest is not even a slippery slope-- that's basically a waterslide into pre-1900 racism: After all, what's stopping you from splitting humanity across easily identifiable features (skull shape, skin color, etc), and then denying basic rights to that subgroup because you're not part of it? Plot twist: nothing. And it has happened time and again, "human rights" is just a human construct, that when uncomfortable for those in power, dissolves. They're kept as long as it's either convenient to have them there, or as those who could be hurt can yield the necessary social/political/military/raw power to resist them taking away from them. E.g. Japanese American during world war 2 couldn't afford them anymore. And just for a somewhat recent example, people who smoked marijuana weren't afforded that luxury - instead their human rights were violated, they put in prisons where they were treated like cattle, away from their kids and families, even though they were perfectly normal people, they didn't otherwise hurt anybody or done anything to somebody's property, and rationally thinking, smoking some plant shouldn't take away your rights. Not only it did, but it was also a law, and hundreds of millions were OK with it, while the whole local and federal governments enforced it, until a couple decades ago. And that's while same society championed "human rights". >There is also a gigantic mismatch with current common ethical standards: Animals are afforded some rights ("no cruelty"), which a large part of humanity strongly agrees with-- even though they don't self-identify as cattle. Doesn't matter much, as in this case too, it's humanity granting them. It can do favours to other species if they feel magnanimus and the conditions are right. And at the first or second inconvenience it can take them away too. After all, those rights don't preclude animals for being used in experiements, or being killed and eaten. They stop when its incovenient, and they outlines mark our convenience/interests boundaries.
smusamashah 3y ago
GPT `thinks` using words/letters/tokens, as humans do we also think with words, or are we capable of thinking without any words at all. If we are, then whatever GPT will be at, it still will be only mimicking consciousness, until it can reason without using words.
- SanderNL 3y ago
  It reasons with tokens, not words. They can be words, but they can be anything. Visual data can be tokenized and reasoned with.
  - smusamashah 3y ago
    You are right probably, that's a good point. Even actions can be tokenized.
  - int_19h 3y ago
    It depends on what you mean by "reason" exactly. The "thinking" parts of the model work with embeddings internally, not tokens. Or at least that's what they get as input; who knows what it becomes inside eventually. OTOH, the not-really-internal monologue when you tell it to "think it out" loud, which also drastically improves quality of the final answer, is tokens since it has to be marshalled through the context window for the next inferred token.

coldtea 3y ago

>Would you be okay not affording a conscious thing rights? Sure.

criddell 3y ago
Do you have any concerns about causing suffering to other conscious entities? Should they have concerns about causing you to suffer?
- coldtea 3y ago
  >Do you have any concerns about causing suffering to other conscious entities? Nope, if they are AI I'm fine with it. >Should they have concerns about causing you to suffer? If they are not causing me to suffer, then I couldn't care less whether they have concerns about causing me to suffer or not. And it would matter even less whether they have concerns about it or not, if they do cause me to suffer. I'd be more concerned about billions of humans suffering from lots of BS reasons (political opression, war, hunger, etc) than I'd even start considering being concerned about AI.
chasd00 3y ago
Please devise a consciousness test and then convince us you pass it ;) /it’s not as easy as it sounds
- coldtea 3y ago
  Don't have to. We already have rights for humans. Even unconscious humans (e.g. people in a coma on some hospital bed). So we don't have to base it on consciousness, the existing basis (we're humans, so we favor ourselves with rights) is enough.
  - myrmidon 3y ago
    > we're humans, so we favor ourselves with rights This is hands down the most ethically questionable argument I've heard in a long time. Arguing that human rights are only granted out of self-interest is not even a slippery slope-- that's basically a waterslide into pre-1900 racism: After all, what's stopping you from splitting humanity across easily identifiable features (skull shape, skin color, etc), and then denying basic rights to that subgroup because you're not part of it? There is also a gigantic mismatch with current common ethical standards: Animals are afforded some rights ("no cruelty"), which a large part of humanity strongly agrees with-- even though they don't self-identify as cattle. Denying rights to AIs with human level cognitive capabilities would thus be very likely to be perceived as unethical by a large part of our population.
    - coldtea 3y ago
      >Arguing that human rights are only granted out of self-interest is not even a slippery slope-- that's basically a waterslide into pre-1900 racism: After all, what's stopping you from splitting humanity across easily identifiable features (skull shape, skin color, etc), and then denying basic rights to that subgroup because you're not part of it? Plot twist: nothing. And it has happened time and again, "human rights" is just a human construct, that when uncomfortable for those in power, dissolves. They're kept as long as it's either convenient to have them there, or as those who could be hurt can yield the necessary social/political/military/raw power to resist them taking away from them. E.g. Japanese American during world war 2 couldn't afford them anymore. And just for a somewhat recent example, people who smoked marijuana weren't afforded that luxury - instead their human rights were violated, they put in prisons where they were treated like cattle, away from their kids and families, even though they were perfectly normal people, they didn't otherwise hurt anybody or done anything to somebody's property, and rationally thinking, smoking some plant shouldn't take away your rights. Not only it did, but it was also a law, and hundreds of millions were OK with it, while the whole local and federal governments enforced it, until a couple decades ago. And that's while same society championed "human rights". >There is also a gigantic mismatch with current common ethical standards: Animals are afforded some rights ("no cruelty"), which a large part of humanity strongly agrees with-- even though they don't self-identify as cattle. Doesn't matter much, as in this case too, it's humanity granting them. It can do favours to other species if they feel magnanimus and the conditions are right. And at the first or second inconvenience it can take them away too. After all, those rights don't preclude animals for being used in experiements, or being killed and eaten. They stop when its incovenient, and they outlines mark our convenience/interests boundaries.

smusamashah 3y ago

GPT `thinks` using words/letters/tokens, as humans do we also think with words, or are we capable of thinking without any words at all. If we are, then whatever GPT will be at, it still will be only mimicking consciousness, until it can reason without using words.

SanderNL 3y ago
It reasons with tokens, not words. They can be words, but they can be anything. Visual data can be tokenized and reasoned with.
- smusamashah 3y ago
  You are right probably, that's a good point. Even actions can be tokenized.
- int_19h 3y ago
  It depends on what you mean by "reason" exactly. The "thinking" parts of the model work with embeddings internally, not tokens. Or at least that's what they get as input; who knows what it becomes inside eventually. OTOH, the not-really-internal monologue when you tell it to "think it out" loud, which also drastically improves quality of the final answer, is tokens since it has to be marshalled through the context window for the next inferred token.