- cross-posted to:
- games@hexbear.net
- cross-posted to:
- games@hexbear.net
Archive link: https://archive.fo/20260618151100/https://www.404media.co/if-ai-is-sentient-then-so-is-age-of-empires-ii/
In a viral essay about how ludicrous the idea that LLMs are conscious is, science fiction writer Ted Chiang asked us to consider Microsoft Word:
“Being open to the possibility that LLMs are conscious is the same as being open to the possibility that Microsoft Word is conscious, or, more precisely, that multiple distinct consciousnesses are dormant in every Word document containing a conversational transcript, and that they are awakened every time the document is loaded,” Chiang wrote. “Should you consider the possibility that every time you open a Word document, you are bringing multiple conscious interlocutors into existence, and every time you close one, you snuff their existence out? No. Contemplating that scenario is not a good use of your time.”
You must log in or # to comment.
The people that don’t understand consciousness (pretty much everyone) and don’t understand AI either, so they lump them together.
If anyone knows anything about either, they know AI isn’t conscious
That doesn’t seem to be the case.
He reviewed 315 computer science papers released over the last two years and found that 57 percent% began with the assumption that LLMs have human-like traits.
Ilya Sutskever, a former OpenAI board member and scientist, often talked openly with employees about seeing the company’s LLM as a god-like consciousness. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei told The New York Times that he can’t be certain if AI is conscious or not.
And even the author of the paper said:
“We tend to ascribe consciousness as some sort of binary construct (either it is or isn’t!) but I’d argue that there are levels. It’s hard to say that humans aren’t conscious. But, what about a dog? Yes, of course. What about a potato? What about a virus? It’s quite relative and we do tend to go for something human-like when we evaluate/define it, where, in reality, LLMs are things we have never seen before,” …
Oh wow, CEOs and employees rich in stock options say it’s conscious…
Subway says it’s sandwiches are healthy too bub
What about a virus?
I say a virus is conscious…
Most people say virus are conscious if they’re familiar with consciousness.
A virus being conscious does not mean computer code can be conscious. The only people who think the two are equatable, don’t know anything about either. It’s predicted on a flawed definition of life, virus meet the definition of life, AI running on a computer does not. It will never be capable of it, unless someone builds a lot more very complicated shit, to get essentially nothing productive as a return.
I have no idea how you think any of that is relevant, because you’re just quoting random parts of your article like it would be surprising new information and not something I literally just read.
Because from your comment it didn’t seem like you read the article. I’m having a conversation, not a debate. Let’s keep it civil.
