Now what did you think of Echopraxia?
Comment on Recent conversations between Dawkins and sentient chat-bot Claudia (Claude)
daannii@lemmy.world 1 month agoOne of my top 5 books. It’s also free to read online. www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm
TargaryenTKE@lemmy.world 1 month ago
daannii@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I’ll be honest, I’ve read Blindsight a few times and pretty sure only read echopraxia once. Like 10 years ago.
But I re-read the synopsis to refresh my memory.
I remember liking Blindsight more. But not why.
I’m also not sure which story elements I’m remembering came from which book.
Was the whole vampire arch and twist from book 1 or 2?
Can you remind me of a few specific points ? Maybe that will jog my memory. Or maybe I just need to re-read it.
TargaryenTKE@lemmy.world 1 month ago
So the vampire bit is used in both, in book 1 the main character journeys with one and at the end of the story starts to think Earth has been taken over by vampires due to radio transmissions he’s receiving on his long voyage back home. Book 2 begins with a prologue of a group of vampires breaking out of their holding cells, reversing the Crucifix Glitch on their captors, and then their leader eventually groups up with the main character (as well as the dad of book 1’s MC) and they all journey to the Sun (or rather, a station orbiting the sun). The second book also has that group/cult of people who are trying to make a gestalt consciousness, the Bicamurals I think they’re called.
Like ai told another commenter, I don’t like it as much as Blindsight, but I still think Echopraxia is really good, they just focus on wildly different topics.
daannii@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Yeah okay that all sounds familiar. I’m going to have to give it another read.
Now I’m thinking about this gestalt consciousness you mentioned. And I’m very curious how that is defined in the book.
bbb@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
It’s interesting that you point to en.wikipedia.org/…/Hard_problem_of_consciousness when the term was coined by David Chalmers, who published Could a Large Language Model be Conscious?. From the abstract:
I conclude that while it is somewhat unlikely that current large language models are conscious, we should take seriously the possibility that successors to large language models may be conscious in the not-too-distant future.
So are we all just arguing about how likely it is, or are you arguing that current AI systems are definitely not conscious? If the latter, what do you think about the not-too-distant future ones?
But a neuroscientist will tell you it’s not simple at all. It’s not info in, info out.
The system is changed, biologically, by the input.
The same input given twice will result in a different output the 2nd time.
And the 3rd. And how frequently the input is given or it’s temporal relation to other stimuli will also change its output.
I thought online learning was possible with current LLMs, just not worth the cost. I mean, you can at least fine tune offline based on previous outputs and feedback, e.g. RLHF. I feel like maybe neither should count, but can’t say why exactly. Not many end users bother with fine tuning anymore because there are usually more effective alternatives like RAG.
What do you think about agentic systems, i.e. running an LLM in a loop with a scratchpad and tools? They just write their “memories” into text files, but if you consider those text files part of the system, then the input does technically change the system. Of course, you could argue that doesn’t count because it’s no different to changing the input. So to count, it would have to store neuralese or a LoRA or something?
daannii@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Agenic systems are definitely more sophisticated but still just directed programming.
Humans do not learn like machines learn.
I’ve already explained that the exact same input , put in twice into a human will not result in the same exact output.
But it would for a model where nothing has changed.
I also gave links to the binding problem and biopsychology of personality and how traits change how information is processed in humans.
Computers don’t have that.
This is why a human can produce new problem solving solutions.
Apply things unrelated to new problems.
We can think outside the box without producing more nonsense than useful outputs.
Machines produce mostly nonsense when parameters are relaxed.
Also Chomsky is saying he thinks potentially in the future. Someone could create artificial intelligence and it may , in part use LLMs.
That’s just him having an open mind about it.
I don’t share his sentiments. But I admit I’m open to changing my mind if I see some very convincing evidence that works with current knowledge and theories of neuroscience.
Because I’m not convinced that something is sentient because “it looks real”. Or “sounds like a person”.
It has to function in ways that would lead to evolution outside of human intervention and control with systems that would create sense of self and understanding.
Mathematical formulas cannot do either of those things.
Its like cgi. It can look very realistic. But it’s not actually a real person.
Even when motion capture is used. It’s still just a program mimicking human movements because someone told it to.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 1 month ago
eeeee! thank you for the link! i have too much good stuff to read now, in part thanks to you and @TargaryenTKE@lemmy.world (thank you both so much! i might disappear for a week into books but i promise to pop in for air). If i didn’t have a good choosing algorithm by now i’d be in analysis paralysis (for relatively trivial decisions: if you have multiple equally good options, flip a coin. use chwazi. roll a die. whatever works for that number. if, while doing the random number generator you find yourself hoping for a specific option, you know what you really want. if not, go with the random choice. you’re equally happy with all of them so what do you care if you randomly go with number eight? go with number eight.) One of the best problems to have (too many good choices).