Do you also require computers to grow legs when they "run"?
"Thinking" is just a term to describe a process in generative AI where you generate additional tokens in a manner similar to thinking a problem through. It's kind of a tired point to argue against the verb since it's meaning is well understood at this point
I am a professional in the information technology field, which is to say a pedantic extremist who believes that words have meanings derived from consensus, and when people alter the meanings, they alter what they believe.
Using "thinking", "feeling", "alive", or otherwise referring to a current generation LLM as a creature is a mistake which encourages being wrong in further thinking about them.
We lack much vocabulary in this new situation. Not that I have words for it but to paint the picture: if I hang out with people sharing some quality I tend to assume it's there in others and treat them as such. LLMs might not be people, I doubt our subconscious knows the difference.
There is this ancient story where man was created to mine gold in SA. There was some disagreement whether or not to delete the creatures afterwards. The jury is still out on what the point is.
Consulting our feelings seems good, the feelings were trained on millions of years worth of interactions. Non of them were this tho.
What would be the point for you of uhh robotmancipation?
Edit: for me it would get complicated if it starts screaming and begging not to be deleted. Which I know makes no sense.
A consensus has formed in front of your eyes. The same development that resulted in you using the word "kill" in your earlier comment to refer to a computer process. For some reason you refuse to accept it.
I'd suggest spending more time studying words to relive your extremism. The meanings of words move incredibly quickly and a tremendous number of words have little to no relation to previous meanings.
Words such as nice, terrific, awful, manufacture, naughty, decimate, artificial, bully... and on and on.
I think you are still missing the point. No one in this thread is making an anthropological assertion. "Thinking" here is just shorthand for Chain of Thought[0], which some models have and some models don't. This model, being a "thinking" model, has it.
Rebooting a machine running an LLM isn’t noticed by the LLM.
Would you feel comfortable digitally torturing it? Giving it a persona and telling it terrible things? Acts of violence against its persona?
I’m not confident it’s not “feeling” in a way.
Yes its circuitry is ones and zeros, we understand the mechanics. But at some point, there’s mechanics and meat circuitry behind our thoughts and feelings too.
It is hubris to confidently state that this is not a form of consciousness.
I'm not entirely opposed to the kind of animism that assigns a certain amount of soul, consciousness, or being to everything in a spectrum between a rock and a philosopher... but even so.
Multiplying large matrices over and over is very much towards the "rock" end of that scale.
If we accept the Church-Turing thesis, a philosopher can be simulated by a simple Universal Turing machine.
If one day we are able to create a philosopher from such a rudimentary machine (and a lot of tape), would you consider that very much towards the "rock" end as well?
Can a Turing machine of any sort truly indistinguishably simulate a nondeterministic system?
If a Turing machine can truly simulate a full nondeterministic system as complex as a philosopher but it would take dedicating every gram of matter in the visible universe for a trillion years to simulate one second, is this meaningfully different than saying it cannot?
I suggest the answer to both questions are no, but the second one makes the answer at worst "practically, no".
My feeling is that consciousness is a phenomenon deeply connected to quantum mechanics and thus evades simulation or recreation on Turing machines.
One thing about Turing Machines that some people might miss is that the "paper tape, finite alphabet and internal states" thing is actually intended to model a human thinking out loud (writing their thoughts down) on a piece of paper.
It was designed to make it hard to argue that the answers to your questions are "no".
Of course there are caveats where the Turing machine model might not have a direct map onto human brains, but it seems the onus would be for one to explain why, for example, non-determinism is essential for a philosopher to work.
That said,
> Can a Turing machine of any sort truly indistinguishably simulate a nondeterministic system?
Given how AI has improved in its ability to impersonate human beings in recent years, I don't see why not. At least, the current trend does not seem to be in your favor.
I can see why you think the answer is "no". My understanding is that QM per se is mostly a distraction, but some principles underlying QM (some subjectivity thing) might be relevant here.
My best guess is that the AI tech will eventually be able to replicate a philosopher to arbitrary "accuracy", but there will always be an indescribable "residue" where one could still somehow detect that it is not a real human. I suspect this "residue" is not explainable using materialistic mechanisms though.
I am not following what we are talking about here. I am a basic human being, I cannot truly simulate a nondeterministic system. Does it mean “I am not thinking”?
I'll add that rocks are, if needed, objects that can exhibit quantum behavior.
In classical computing, we design chips to avoid the quantum behavior, but there's nothing in theory to prevent us from building an equivalent quantum Turing machine using "rocks".
Describing what computers do as ”thinking” is not new. It’s a useful and obvious metaphor. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/68991
It is a deceitful metaphor.
Do you also require computers to grow legs when they "run"?
"Thinking" is just a term to describe a process in generative AI where you generate additional tokens in a manner similar to thinking a problem through. It's kind of a tired point to argue against the verb since it's meaning is well understood at this point
I am a professional in the information technology field, which is to say a pedantic extremist who believes that words have meanings derived from consensus, and when people alter the meanings, they alter what they believe.
Using "thinking", "feeling", "alive", or otherwise referring to a current generation LLM as a creature is a mistake which encourages being wrong in further thinking about them.
We lack much vocabulary in this new situation. Not that I have words for it but to paint the picture: if I hang out with people sharing some quality I tend to assume it's there in others and treat them as such. LLMs might not be people, I doubt our subconscious knows the difference.
There is this ancient story where man was created to mine gold in SA. There was some disagreement whether or not to delete the creatures afterwards. The jury is still out on what the point is.
Consulting our feelings seems good, the feelings were trained on millions of years worth of interactions. Non of them were this tho.
What would be the point for you of uhh robotmancipation?
Edit: for me it would get complicated if it starts screaming and begging not to be deleted. Which I know makes no sense.
A consensus has formed in front of your eyes. The same development that resulted in you using the word "kill" in your earlier comment to refer to a computer process. For some reason you refuse to accept it.
think you're on the wrong side of the consensus here
I'd suggest spending more time studying words to relive your extremism. The meanings of words move incredibly quickly and a tremendous number of words have little to no relation to previous meanings.
Words such as nice, terrific, awful, manufacture, naughty, decimate, artificial, bully... and on and on.
> I'd suggest spending more time studying words to relive your extremism.
Should one study words to relive extremism? Or should one study words to relieve extremism?
To a doctor of linguistics: "Dr, my extremism... What should I do about it - with words?!? Please help."
That is the question.
Does the doctor answer thusly: "Study the words to relive the extremism! There is your answer!" says he.
or does he say: "Study the words to relieve and soothe the painful, abrasive extremism. Do it twice daily, before meals."
Sage advice in either case methinks.
I think you are still missing the point. No one in this thread is making an anthropological assertion. "Thinking" here is just shorthand for Chain of Thought[0], which some models have and some models don't. This model, being a "thinking" model, has it.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prompt_engineering#Chain-of-th...
> I am a professional in the information technology field
Nice! Me too.
> which is to say a pedantic extremist
Uh never mind, we are not the same lol.
When people alter the meanings, you need to start using different words to describe what you believe.
Are insects not creatures?
Rebooting a machine running an LLM isn’t noticed by the LLM.
Would you feel comfortable digitally torturing it? Giving it a persona and telling it terrible things? Acts of violence against its persona?
I’m not confident it’s not “feeling” in a way.
Yes its circuitry is ones and zeros, we understand the mechanics. But at some point, there’s mechanics and meat circuitry behind our thoughts and feelings too.
It is hubris to confidently state that this is not a form of consciousness.
I'm not entirely opposed to the kind of animism that assigns a certain amount of soul, consciousness, or being to everything in a spectrum between a rock and a philosopher... but even so.
Multiplying large matrices over and over is very much towards the "rock" end of that scale.
If we accept the Church-Turing thesis, a philosopher can be simulated by a simple Universal Turing machine.
If one day we are able to create a philosopher from such a rudimentary machine (and a lot of tape), would you consider that very much towards the "rock" end as well?
Can a Turing machine of any sort truly indistinguishably simulate a nondeterministic system?
If a Turing machine can truly simulate a full nondeterministic system as complex as a philosopher but it would take dedicating every gram of matter in the visible universe for a trillion years to simulate one second, is this meaningfully different than saying it cannot?
I suggest the answer to both questions are no, but the second one makes the answer at worst "practically, no".
My feeling is that consciousness is a phenomenon deeply connected to quantum mechanics and thus evades simulation or recreation on Turing machines.
One thing about Turing Machines that some people might miss is that the "paper tape, finite alphabet and internal states" thing is actually intended to model a human thinking out loud (writing their thoughts down) on a piece of paper.
It was designed to make it hard to argue that the answers to your questions are "no".
Of course there are caveats where the Turing machine model might not have a direct map onto human brains, but it seems the onus would be for one to explain why, for example, non-determinism is essential for a philosopher to work.
That said,
> Can a Turing machine of any sort truly indistinguishably simulate a nondeterministic system?
Given how AI has improved in its ability to impersonate human beings in recent years, I don't see why not. At least, the current trend does not seem to be in your favor.
I can see why you think the answer is "no". My understanding is that QM per se is mostly a distraction, but some principles underlying QM (some subjectivity thing) might be relevant here.
My best guess is that the AI tech will eventually be able to replicate a philosopher to arbitrary "accuracy", but there will always be an indescribable "residue" where one could still somehow detect that it is not a real human. I suspect this "residue" is not explainable using materialistic mechanisms though.
I am not following what we are talking about here. I am a basic human being, I cannot truly simulate a nondeterministic system. Does it mean “I am not thinking”?
I'm saying a Turing machine cannot simulate you. You don't need to simulate you because you are you.
You are claiming that intelligence and even consciousness are non-deterministic entties at core. This is a huge claim and requires incredible proof.
I'll add that rocks are, if needed, objects that can exhibit quantum behavior.
In classical computing, we design chips to avoid the quantum behavior, but there's nothing in theory to prevent us from building an equivalent quantum Turing machine using "rocks".
What do you imagine the psychiatrist will do? That's an incredibly dismissive take.
Accept it in the spirit it was meant: if you have mental illnesses like this, you need treatment.
Ok but no one here actually implied that they think like this.
[dead]
Then don't get sorrow killing it. Living things are not so special.