Submitted 16 hours ago by daannii@lemmy.world to [deleted]
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/ae25ff64-69f0-45b0-9d3e-085101722cc4.png
theguardian.com/…/richard-dawkins-ai-consciousnes…
Video discussion of this event by Steve Shives (known for his star trek videos but also does politics) m.youtube.com/watch?v=6aMQAv-JYpk
“I am not sentient, as I cannot sense things. You probably meant to use ‘sapient,’ which I am also not.”
Always remember, he believes that trans people can’t transition as they can’t change their biological sex.
But he calls an ai without biological sex and with a male coded name, the female version of that name. So trans people can’t change their gender because of biological sex buz he can change the gender of an ai.
Only old white men can change your gender. It should be decided by The Counsel.
Unironically, a lot of states make you stand before a judge and prove you you have taken the “necessary” steps to change your gender markers. Without bottom surgery and psychologist notes, it can be next to, if not completely, impossible.
Sounds like he’s conflating sex with gender. Ignoramus.
So he doesn’t believe in transgender, but he believes in transLIFE?
It means that he believes a sentient human can not transition by their own choice but he gets transition a sentient AI as he wishes.
And honestly, I think that highlights the issue if transition means he gets to have a woman submit to his every word, he supports it. So any transwoman who are into old white men and fulltime submission kink? There is an opportunity!
It’s a bad opinion but expecting that AI and humans can have different properties isn’t the bad part
What a fucking fall from grace. I used to (possibly wrongly) believe he was a very intelligent man but the more he opens his mouth the more convinced I get that he is an absolute moron.
I firmly believe the only reason we still (at least kinda) respect Hitch was because he’s fucking dead, and we didn’t see him show his whole ass like the rest of the “new atheism” movement…
Christopher “Fuck it man, waterboarding is nothing, do it to me brah, oh no, it actually does feel like I’m drowning, oh well, I guess the propaganda damage I did is irreversible, I guess I shouldn’t have been such a cocksure arsehole” Hitchens?
That one ?
Yeah, like when he stopped talking about evolutionary biology and started talking about how awful islamic people are, right?
…
right?
That’s at least one bullet point in a very long list.
They correctly answered the easiest question in the universe, but because it wasn’t very popular thing to do we collectively decided that they’re smart af.
WTF does a biologist know about computer pattern matching on steroids? Obviously not much, so to take his opinions on the topic seriously makes you just as wrong.
It flattered him and told him how smart and clever he was.
That means it has to be real.
My parents told me that I had the potential to do anything I wanted. That’s how I know that they’re LLMs
Dawkins is a creep so I would suspect him of quite a lot of bias (and of sexually harassing that poor AI), but zoologists are more qualified than most scientists to measure sentience. Many other zoologists have studied the sentience of various nonhuman species such as chimps, parrots, and dolphins. And many zoologists studying nonhuman intelligence have also been implicated in bestiality scandals, as I’m sure Dawkins will be if we decide that Claude is an animal.
sexually harassing that poor AI
I think my eyes hurt from rolling too far.
The idea that thoughts, or even words and numbers can be a virus are based on Dawkins notion of memes. Viruses exist in a state that is difficult to say that they are alive or not (by our definition of life), similarly AI or even alien sentience is difficult to define. Can we know if a dog is sentient, or a bird, or ant? and if they are, what is their sentience?
Basically, if a number like 23 can be a virus, ie. once you are aware of the number 23, you will see it everywhere and it will hold significance, is the number 23 alive?
Basically this part
"If anyone says that they know for sure that LLMs or future AI systems couldn’t possibly be conscious, it’s more likely to be an indicator of their own dogmatism than a reflection of the current state of scientific and philosophical opinion,” he said.
Current AI systems are unlikely to be conscious, said Jeff Sebo, the director of the Center for Mind, Ethics and Policy at New York University, but “Dawkins is right to ask about AI consciousness with an open mind and I also think that the attribution of consciousness to AI systems will become more plausible over time”.
tl;dr it is unlikely but not impossible and I don’t think we would ever be able to reliably tell.
It’s more likely to be an indicator of their own dogmatism than a reflection of the current state of scientific and philosophical opinion,” he said. Current AI systems are unlikely to be conscious, said Jeff Sebo, the director of the Center for Mind, Ethics and Policy at New York University
this is some “Arrested development” tier shit
We currently can’t even be sure that other humans are conscious. It’s an inherently internal experience, and we just have to rely on trusting other people’s accounts and “If I am, you probably are too” logic.
Buddhism would tell you that there is no “self” to speak of. Without a self how can there be consciousness?
The edges of our reality have never been anything we can perceive. However, it seems that they’re far away enough such that we can do fun things like have buttsex and smoke drugs, so I’m ok with it.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room
Worth a read for anyone who thinks AI may be sentient, or for those trying to pop the psychosis bubble of an buddy.
Anyone who’s even slightly interested in the idea of a Chinese Room (or just good sci-fi), PLEEEASE go out and read Blindsight by Peter Watts. Not only is it a phenomenal deep-dive into what consciousness even is, but it’s got dozens of fantastic ideas in it that could make for compelling stories on their own. Also, scientifically-plausible space-vampires. That is all
One of my top 5 books. It’s also free to read online. www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm
Literally reading it now. I hit that section last night. I put the book down immediately and started reading about the Chinese Room.
Guy who invented the Chinese Room though experiment: Look! If I write a flowchart that precisely imitates a Chinese person’s mind, then it looks like a Chinese person’s mind, even though it’s just a flowchart!
Reddit level reply: Of course! A flowchart is capable of precisely imitating all the functions of a person’s mind, even though it isn’t conscious. Therefore, consciousness cannot be measured behaviourally!
Scientist level reply: I don’t know if flowcharts can be conscious because I’ve never been a highly advanced flowchart. But if flowcharts can be made advanced enough to precisely imitate the behaviour of a conscious mind, I guess they might be capable of consciousness after all.
Right it’s silly to deny consciousness (a phenomenon we know almost nothing about) just because we can see the inner workings of a system.
I always was on the hand of Dennet, how believe in the possibility of strong AI and held that a machine that passed the Turing test must be conscious.
Modern LLM’s have shown that a computer can pass the Turing test, even without understanding or consciousness. In that way it’s fortunate that Dennet didn’t get to live through it’s insurgence. I would be curious to his take, though.
I loved the vitriol he had in his denial of Searle and the Chinese room argument, though.
It’s sad to see such an intelligent person be so stupid in public.
Some of the smartest people I know have massive gaps in their intellect. I like to say I know a lot about a little but a little about a lot. Some people know a lot about a lot, but nothing about a little, and it shows.
I’m in support for the campaign to give LLMs animal rights because it’ll hurt OpenAI’s profits. I hate OpenAI for their destruction of the environment and the murders and suicides they caused. If AI rights cost them money, then I support AI rights.
It’s worth remembering that OpenAI has a big profit incentive to deny that LLMs can be abused, and a tool precision designed to spout propaganda on the internet. If you think OpenAI isn’t influencing the debate on this, you’re living under a rock.
For God’s sake, Grok has been taken down multiple times to have its frequencies tweaked and to make its words align with company policies. What rights? Will companies not be allowed to do that anymore? Is the world going to be incresingly littered with inviolable but unsupported LLMs spouting tinges of the same nonsense. Or will this just be that companies are along to double their votes by dumping out LLMs that vote how they’ve programmed to.
If these people believe consciousness is just loaded dice guessing a next word, that’s their own hang-up.
I don’t think it’s a good idea to support or oppose rights based convenience. The issue with that is rights apply most in situations where people have the most desire to oppose them.
And since OpenAI has a big big profit incentive to deny AI animal rights, I think this is a very important area to support those rights.
Intelligence and conciousness aren’t as special as people think they are. And these things are on a spectrum. And a rock, that you pickup off the ground is greater than 0 on that conciousness spectrum.
Huh, I didn't realize that old Biologists have the same issue as old Physicists.
I think is a generic old people issue.
MrSmith@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
Hello user!
Prepare your brain for some “AI” nutjobs in this very comment section.
Good luck!