I understand your assertion that words imply sentience. I also understand that you refuse to engage with philosophical arguments about words and their implication. I understand that you think this is smart.
A claim you refuse to defend is baseless. There’s nothing left to understand.
I understand your assertion that words imply sentience.
It’s evident you do not understand because I never said this. You just make stuff up in your head to pretend is ‘hard evidence’ it is delusional. You have this sense of entitlement that I have to take you seriously to participate in your delusions it’s pathetic. I’ll just call you dumb and say you don’t know what you are talking about because you know you don’t you are pathetic. Like I said it’s painful but I am here for it.
So why I chose to partake in this painful exercise was to prove being dumb like you is the problem we aren’t talking about actual issues you are just trying to hurt a void’s feelings by being what you think is mean to ‘AI’ no matter how much I tried to get you back on track to a real problem.
It’s evident you do not understand because I never said this.
You claim LLMs can have feelings (which is what sentient means). As evidence, you cite the output they produce: If the machine says it’s sad, it’s sad.
You just make stuff up in your head to pretend is ‘hard evidence’
No, I’m denying the existence of stuff you made up without hard evidence.
you are just trying to hurt a void’s feelings by being what you think is mean to ‘AI’
This accusation doesn’t make sense. My entire argument is that LLMs don’t have feelings I could hurt. How would I even try to hurt something I don’t believe exists? I cannot be mean to a rock, or to Multiplication, or to a number. Why would I think otherwise?
I think you’re projecting an assumption on me that you don’t even understand is an assumption. You don’t know what I’m talking about because I’m questioning something you consider objectively true and can’t step back to re-examine.
So let me be clear about my position: I fundamentally reject the notion that an LLM can feel anything, including guilt. I do not believe that guilt can make it change its behaviour because it doesn’t feel guilt.
So when you talk about solving actual issues, the fact that you believe in guilt as a solution is a problem itself because it gets in the way of an honest, useful approach.
Yea no you still don’t get it… When I say you don’t get it that doesn’t mean double down, triple down, quadtriple down on the exact same nonsense I really don’t care about your personal opinion. Well it has been fun but you need to stop your self righteous idiocy this is kinda ridiculous right? ha
…said the one accusing me of trying to hurt feelings.
double down, triple down, quadtriple down on the exact same nonsense
…said the one who doubled, tripled and quadrupled down that models could have compunction, that the concept of feelings could be applied to models, that a model describing itself as sad is sad and implying that I could hurt feelings.
I really don’t care about your personal opinion.
Yes, you said that before. I acknowledged that. It’s also clear from the way you assumed I’m trying to be mean.
I’m trying to show that your opinion isn’t factual either, in order to establish a basis for finding facts together, because my intention isn’t hurting anyone or anything. I’m not trying to attack your person. I’m trying to have a discussion rather than a shit-slinging contest, because I still believe we can refine our respective understanding.
Open for philosophy after all? Great, let’s have a productive conversation!
I concede that an abstract definition of feelings that can be applied to perceptrons is possible.
My antithesis should then be refined to specify that contemporary language models do not accurately model human feelings.
That distinction matters, and we shouldn't pretend that they do.
The abstraction loses details that give specific instances their meaning and value. Again, this is a negative, a rejection of an unproven positive. The burden of evidence lies with the positive claim that the models have feelings. I have not seen any other evidence than “they say they do” which is circular and thus invalid.
The distinction matters for the social and psychological way people interact with these models. Laypeople cannot distinguish between the abstract concept of feelings as perceptions and the concrete range of human feelings we associate with that term. To insist that they have feelings is disingenuous, because it fudges that distinction. It’s the same type of “technically not a lie” that advertising likes to use to deceive people about the nature of the product on offer.
That deceptive appearance of human-like sentience invites the deluded belief in their sapience, human morality and critical reasoning. People trust these models to provide truthful and reliable answers. They clearly don’t, but the delusion that they do has caused the damage we’re talking about avoiding here.
Thus, the assertion that LLMs have feelings is disingenuous and dangerous, and the particular assertion that they have human feelings is outright baseless.
Feelings by themselves are also insufficient for behaviour control in LLMs.
If we’re applying the concept of abstract feelings to the specific question of controlling behaviour, whatever form that feeling would take has to feed back into the output-generation process before that output is passed to the user.
For some measure of “guilt” to influence behaviour, the model would have to be able to determine whether a certain output would lead to results that increase the “guilt” value. It would need to predict ways its output could be interpreted, what impact those interpretations might have on the actions and feelings of the recipient and their environment, calculate some “guilt score” for the possible results and aggregate it into some kind of “guilt risk”.
Even just the question of interpretations requires some model of the semantics a given word or sequence of words might have. Judging the potential impact on the recipient’s feelings requires a thorough understanding of human feelings and psychology. To predict actions requires an understanding of actions and their potential consequences.
It would also need a way to tell which parts of the response contribute to the negative outcome to exclude those from the regenerated response. Otherwise the already immense amount of processing required for this task would be additionally bloated by wasted calculations repeating the same mistake.
These things require a model of reality beyond pure language. Hence, the assertion that guilt alone could change behaviour is incomplete. Feeling remorse after the fact isn’t helpful unless you can prevent the causes beforehand.
I believe that semantic understanding can be the way forward to more intelligent models, but we need to acknowledge that pure language models don’t have it yet.
The distinction matters for the social and psychological way people interact with these models. Laypeople cannot distinguish between the abstract concept of feelings as perceptions and the concrete range of human feelings we associate with that term. To insist that they have feelings is disingenuous, because it fudges that distinction. It’s the same type of “technically not a lie” that advertising likes to use to deceive people about the nature of the product on offer.
Yea this is you trying to be mean to the concept of AI its place in the zeitgeist. We are humans we attach human sentiment to things the Japanese give machines souls. My philosophy for this is to focus on objective problems so the community is not just circlejerking about sentience as if it changes anything it’s basically a non serious fun conversation. You will use it if it works you will not if it does not.
I wanted to talk about compunction as far as text and internal representations are concerned, and you wanted to dabble in philosophy at me knowing I will reply :'(
Yea this is you trying to be mean to the concept of AI
How can I be mean to a concept?
My philosophy for this is to focus on objective problems
Such as people building parasocial relationships with machines and trusting them? Such as people spiraling into delusion because the machine affirms them in it?
Such as people thinking they can genuinely replace human workers with AI, causing significant social and economic damage, only to realise that the oh-so-human machine doesn’t have the same critical reasoning, judgement, understanding or capacity to learn as human workers when the reduction in quality becomes apparent?
I think you’re missing the fact that humanising the machine is part of many objective problems. Sentience isn’t the issue; the tendency to mistake it for humanity is. Whether or not it is sentient is a philosophical question, but it quite objectively isn’t human, and to believe otherwise is plain delusion.
People are burning the planet for that delusion. How’s that for an objectivr problem?
I wanted to talk about compunction as far as text and internal representations are concerned, and you wanted to dabble in philosophy at me
To talk about the textual representation of concepts is philosophy. You assign meaning to words. “If the machine says it is sad then it is sad” is a philosophical assertion.
You: I prefer to talk about problems.
Me: Here are some problems.
You: You’re just trying to be mean.
You: Guilt can correct behaviour.
Me: Yes, if decisions take consequences into account.
You: That’s not relevant.
You: I want to talk about textual representations of concepts.
Me: So you want to talk about the link between text and meaning?
You: No
You don’t understand.
Understand what? That we can apply the abstract concept of feelings to the internal state of a machine? I do understand that. I agreed with it. I made it the basis of my own argument, which you never read.
That compunction can change behaviour? I agreed with that too and addressed it in that argument, which you never read.
That you don’t like to engage in reasonable argument, instead deflecting all critical examination as “you don’t understand”, “dabbling philosophy” or “being mean”?
I never said it was logical.
I think that just about sums up your entire position.
I understand your assertion that words imply sentience. I also understand that you refuse to engage with philosophical arguments about words and their implication. I understand that you think this is smart.
A claim you refuse to defend is baseless. There’s nothing left to understand.
It’s evident you do not understand because I never said this. You just make stuff up in your head to pretend is ‘hard evidence’ it is delusional. You have this sense of entitlement that I have to take you seriously to participate in your delusions it’s pathetic. I’ll just call you dumb and say you don’t know what you are talking about because you know you don’t you are pathetic. Like I said it’s painful but I am here for it.
So why I chose to partake in this painful exercise was to prove being dumb like you is the problem we aren’t talking about actual issues you are just trying to hurt a void’s feelings by being what you think is mean to ‘AI’ no matter how much I tried to get you back on track to a real problem.
You claim LLMs can have feelings (which is what sentient means). As evidence, you cite the output they produce: If the machine says it’s sad, it’s sad.
No, I’m denying the existence of stuff you made up without hard evidence.
This accusation doesn’t make sense. My entire argument is that LLMs don’t have feelings I could hurt. How would I even try to hurt something I don’t believe exists? I cannot be mean to a rock, or to Multiplication, or to a number. Why would I think otherwise?
I think you’re projecting an assumption on me that you don’t even understand is an assumption. You don’t know what I’m talking about because I’m questioning something you consider objectively true and can’t step back to re-examine.
So let me be clear about my position: I fundamentally reject the notion that an LLM can feel anything, including guilt. I do not believe that guilt can make it change its behaviour because it doesn’t feel guilt.
So when you talk about solving actual issues, the fact that you believe in guilt as a solution is a problem itself because it gets in the way of an honest, useful approach.
Yea no you still don’t get it… When I say you don’t get it that doesn’t mean double down, triple down, quadtriple down on the exact same nonsense I really don’t care about your personal opinion. Well it has been fun but you need to stop your self righteous idiocy this is kinda ridiculous right? ha
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/abstract
…said the one accusing me of trying to hurt feelings.
…said the one who doubled, tripled and quadrupled down that models could have compunction, that the concept of feelings could be applied to models, that a model describing itself as sad is sad and implying that I could hurt feelings.
Yes, you said that before. I acknowledged that. It’s also clear from the way you assumed I’m trying to be mean.
I’m trying to show that your opinion isn’t factual either, in order to establish a basis for finding facts together, because my intention isn’t hurting anyone or anything. I’m not trying to attack your person. I’m trying to have a discussion rather than a shit-slinging contest, because I still believe we can refine our respective understanding.
Open for philosophy after all? Great, let’s have a productive conversation!
I concede that an abstract definition of feelings that can be applied to perceptrons is possible. My antithesis should then be refined to specify that contemporary language models do not accurately model human feelings.
That distinction matters, and we shouldn't pretend that they do.
The abstraction loses details that give specific instances their meaning and value. Again, this is a negative, a rejection of an unproven positive. The burden of evidence lies with the positive claim that the models have feelings. I have not seen any other evidence than “they say they do” which is circular and thus invalid.
The distinction matters for the social and psychological way people interact with these models. Laypeople cannot distinguish between the abstract concept of feelings as perceptions and the concrete range of human feelings we associate with that term. To insist that they have feelings is disingenuous, because it fudges that distinction. It’s the same type of “technically not a lie” that advertising likes to use to deceive people about the nature of the product on offer.
That deceptive appearance of human-like sentience invites the deluded belief in their sapience, human morality and critical reasoning. People trust these models to provide truthful and reliable answers. They clearly don’t, but the delusion that they do has caused the damage we’re talking about avoiding here.
Thus, the assertion that LLMs have feelings is disingenuous and dangerous, and the particular assertion that they have human feelings is outright baseless.
Feelings by themselves are also insufficient for behaviour control in LLMs.
If we’re applying the concept of abstract feelings to the specific question of controlling behaviour, whatever form that feeling would take has to feed back into the output-generation process before that output is passed to the user.
For some measure of “guilt” to influence behaviour, the model would have to be able to determine whether a certain output would lead to results that increase the “guilt” value. It would need to predict ways its output could be interpreted, what impact those interpretations might have on the actions and feelings of the recipient and their environment, calculate some “guilt score” for the possible results and aggregate it into some kind of “guilt risk”.
Even just the question of interpretations requires some model of the semantics a given word or sequence of words might have. Judging the potential impact on the recipient’s feelings requires a thorough understanding of human feelings and psychology. To predict actions requires an understanding of actions and their potential consequences.
It would also need a way to tell which parts of the response contribute to the negative outcome to exclude those from the regenerated response. Otherwise the already immense amount of processing required for this task would be additionally bloated by wasted calculations repeating the same mistake.
These things require a model of reality beyond pure language. Hence, the assertion that guilt alone could change behaviour is incomplete. Feeling remorse after the fact isn’t helpful unless you can prevent the causes beforehand.
I believe that semantic understanding can be the way forward to more intelligent models, but we need to acknowledge that pure language models don’t have it yet.
Yea this is you trying to be mean to the concept of AI its place in the zeitgeist. We are humans we attach human sentiment to things the Japanese give machines souls. My philosophy for this is to focus on objective problems so the community is not just circlejerking about sentience as if it changes anything it’s basically a non serious fun conversation. You will use it if it works you will not if it does not.
I wanted to talk about compunction as far as text and internal representations are concerned, and you wanted to dabble in philosophy at me knowing I will reply :'(
How can I be mean to a concept?
Such as people building parasocial relationships with machines and trusting them? Such as people spiraling into delusion because the machine affirms them in it? Such as people thinking they can genuinely replace human workers with AI, causing significant social and economic damage, only to realise that the oh-so-human machine doesn’t have the same critical reasoning, judgement, understanding or capacity to learn as human workers when the reduction in quality becomes apparent?
I think you’re missing the fact that humanising the machine is part of many objective problems. Sentience isn’t the issue; the tendency to mistake it for humanity is. Whether or not it is sentient is a philosophical question, but it quite objectively isn’t human, and to believe otherwise is plain delusion.
People are burning the planet for that delusion. How’s that for an objectivr problem?
To talk about the textual representation of concepts is philosophy. You assign meaning to words. “If the machine says it is sad then it is sad” is a philosophical assertion.
Are you expecting me not to argue?
I never said it was logical.
Yea yea more nonsense it is not relevant because you don’t understand :/
You: I prefer to talk about problems.
Me: Here are some problems.
You: You’re just trying to be mean.
You: Guilt can correct behaviour.
Me: Yes, if decisions take consequences into account.
You: That’s not relevant.
You: I want to talk about textual representations of concepts.
Me: So you want to talk about the link between text and meaning?
You: No
Understand what? That we can apply the abstract concept of feelings to the internal state of a machine? I do understand that. I agreed with it. I made it the basis of my own argument, which you never read.
That compunction can change behaviour? I agreed with that too and addressed it in that argument, which you never read.
That you don’t like to engage in reasonable argument, instead deflecting all critical examination as “you don’t understand”, “dabbling philosophy” or “being mean”?
I think that just about sums up your entire position.