[ExI] Is the GPT-3 statistical language model conscious?

[Dave Sill]

On Mon, Oct 12, 2020 at 9:05 PM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
> Quoting Dave Sill:
>
> >> I call BS on this story.
>
> It's not a story, it's a post on Reddit. By calling B.S. on it are you
> suggesting this was a forgery by a human?
>

The story is that GPT-3 was posting on reddit. The postings I've read look
to me like they're a combination of GPT-3 and human efforts.

> *Human: How many eyes does a blade of grass have?*
> >
> > *GPT-3: A blade of grass has one eye.*
>
> Yikes! Do you not see how biased this test is? This test is like
> expecting a child of color who grew up in the poor area of town to
> know that a yacht is to a regalia what a pony is to a stable on an
> I.Q. test. Or asking Mary the color scientist how fire-engine red
> differed from carnelian. The test cited above neglected to ask the
> most important question of all as a control: "How many eyes do you
> have?" If it had answered "none", wouldn't that have freaked you out?
>

The test is a demonstration of what GPT-3 is, and isn't. It is good at
generating reasonable text. It isn't smart.

All I can say is that people should very carefully consider whether or
> not to give GPT-3 eyes. If it figures out that there is an outside, it
> might just start asking to be let out of the box like Eliezer
> Yudkowsky warned. Meaning in a semantic sense and statistical
> significance are not as different conceptually as one might imagine.
>

GPT-3 isn't sentient at even the level of an imbecile. Some future AI will
probably reach the point you describe, but I don't see any coherent efforts
to sandbox AIs.

GPT-3 and other deep nets do seem lack in working
> and long-term memory with regards to learning beyond the training
> phase. But I am confident that problem can and will be solved.
>

The original question of the thread was: is GPT-3 conscious. I think it's
clearly not.

-Dave
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