>Some languages are far more expressive and specialized in logical conditions, conditionals, recursion and reasoning. Like eskimos have 100 words for snow, but for boolean algebra.
Really?
Because if one accepts that computer languages are languages, then it seems that we could identify one or two that are highly specialized in logical conditions etc. Prolog springs to mind.
We have already proven that all the computing mechanism that those languages derive their semantic forms are equivalent to the Turing Machine. So C and Prolog are only different in terms of notations, not in terms of result.
Yes, really. The concept GP is alluding to is called the Sapir-Worf hypothesis, which is largely non scientific pop linguistics drivel. Elements of a much weaker version have some scientific merit.
Programming languages are not languages in the human brain nor the culture sense.
Stop reading Curtis Yarvin's pseudo-history. Like 8 million people died in the Thirty Years War before modern democratic states, and there's plenty of other examples.
I know I feel experience. I don't know for sure if you do, but it seems a very reasonable extension to other people. LLMs are a radical jump though that needs a greater degree of justification.
And what kind of evidence would convince you? What experiment would ever bridge this gap? You’re relying entirely on similarity between yourself and other humans. This doesn’t extend very well to anything, even animals, though more so than machines. By framing it this way have you baked in the conclusion that nothing else can be conscious on an a priori basis?
There are fields that focus on these areas and numerous ideas around what the criteria would be. One of the common understandings is that recurrent processing is likely a foundational layer for consciousness, and agents do not have this currently.
I'd say that in terms of evidence I'd want to establish specific functional criteria that seem related to consciousness and then try to establish those criteria existing in agents. If we can do so, then they're conscious. My layman understanding is that they don't really come close to some of the fairly fundamental assumptions.
Unsurprisingly, there are a lot of frameworks for this that have already been applied to LLMs.
Sorry, what are you saying? That there are people who study these things, and you’d want to see… something as evidence? Your post doesn’t actually seem to have any substantive content.
I noted that there are people who work on designing those sorts of tests and answering these questions and then I described what good evidence would look like.
I'm not sure what evidence would convince me, but I don't think the way LLMs act is convincing enough. The kinds of errors they make and the fact they operate in very clear discrete chunks makes it seem hard to me to attribute them subjective experience.
I have decided to draw an arbitrary line at mammals, just because you gotta put a line somewhere and move on with your life. Mammals shouldn’t be mistreated, for almost any reason.
Sometimes the whole animal kingdom, sometimes all living organisms, depending on context. Like, I would rather not harm a mosquito, but if it’s in my house I will feel no remorse for killing it.
LLMs, or any other artificial “life”, I simply do not and will not care about, even though I accept that to some extent my entire consciousness can be simulated neuron by neuron in a large enough computer. Fuck that guy, tbh.
Just because a law is bad doesn't mean breaking it is a good thing. The laws against gambling are bad, but that's because they're too loose, not because they're too strict. Breaking those laws to gamble doesn't make gambling a good thing.
I'm surprised the author finds emulation not worth covering, that's obviously the best way to play old games in the vast majority of cases. I guess maybe they wanted to keep up the kayfabe that everyone is getting roms from the original media.
Recommending RetroArch seems needlessly complex too, I'd figure it'd be simpler to learn how to operate a given emulator for a given system since the scope is narrower. DuckStation's UI for example is pretty friendly.
reply