[ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive

Thu Jul 7 21:36:13 UTC 2022

Sorry to elaborate, for example, read Blake Lemoine's (the engineer that
claimed LaMDA is conscious) latest Medium article

https://cajundiscordian.medium.com/who-should-make-decisions-about-ai-33f19e9fe5cc

Independently from his conclusion about LaMDA awareness, the arguments
raised in the article are very serious and profound. Of course, the issue
of how to decide if AI is aware is not new (famously Turing among others
came up with possible tests and so on) but I don't remember seeing anywhere
a serious discussion, in particular, one that caught the public attention
and imagination, of who exactly would make that decision and what it should
be done if the decision is that indeed we are dealing with a conscious
entity.
Also, the topic of AI rights is not new and Kurzweil even had a
fictionalized video on this topic. But it was all hypothetical and sci-fi
like so it didn't really create serious discussions and debates.
The fact somebody, right or wrong, came out, with some personal
consequences in their own lives, claiming that in fact, we have created the
first conscious AI changed all this and made it real.
So I think people like us that have been interested for years on these
ideas, and in fact, these topics and issues are part of our identity in a
way, should be the last ones dismissing this discussion (for example with
sentences like "people often think their chatbot is alive" that is the
title of this thread) as something ridiculous and based on some delusion.
Giovanni

On Thu, Jul 7, 2022 at 2:20 PM Giovanni Santostasi <gsantostasi at gmail.com>
wrote:

> The main issue regarding this affair is NOT really if LaMDA is conscious
> or not, but rather:
> 1. Who decides if LaMDA (and similar advanced AI creation) is conscious?
> Should the general public be involved given the possible history-changing
> implications?
> 2. How do we decide if an entity (artificial or otherwise, for example, an
> alien life form we may discover in the future) is conscious and it should
> be considered a "person"?
> 3. What if the AI of a given complexity and sophistication, not to be
> easily dismissed as a simple chatbot, claims to be aware and to be treated
> as a person, should we do just that?
>
> These questions are among the most profound and consequential questions
> that humanity may ever deal with and they should be taken seriously. The
> entire point of LaMDA story is that dealing with these questions is not
> something that we can postpone to 100 years from now but something that is
> relevant right now even if LaMDA turns out not to be quite conscious yet.
> LaMDA may indeed become really conscious (a conclusion that requires
> answering the above questions anyway) in the near future or some other AI
> experiment may do that so it is a good idea to deal with these issues as
> soon as possible.
> Giovanni
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 7, 2022 at 1:45 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>>
>> True, I agree, the discussion part is important.
>> I just think it is also critically important to capture the results of
>> such discussions, especially on things we agree on, what we disagree with,
>> and  how many...  And how is all this understanding progressing?
>> Discussions are lost, but if we capture the results, it moves everyone
>> forward, ratcheting everyone up in our understanding.
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Jul 7, 2022 at 7:57 AM BillK via extropy-chat <
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>
>>> On Wed, 6 Jul 2022 at 01:33, Brent Allsop via extropy-chat
>>> <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>> >
>>> > In my opinion, this kind of back and forth bleating and tweeting,
>>> going on all over the internet, is a complete waste of time, and in fact
>>> makes everyone more clueless, more polarized, and less interested in
>>> critically important moral issues.
>>> >
>>> > Far better to just canonizer your views, than rehashing half baked
>>> versions ad infinitem.  Instead build and track consensus around your
>>> ideas, compare them to better views, amplifying the moral wisdom of the
>>> crowd, and making everyone more interested in the good arguments (those
>>> that convert people) not the ones that polarize people.
>>> >
>>> > _______________________________________________
>>>
>>>
>>> I don't like this suggestion.
>>> It looks like you want to stop discussion on Exi-chat and move
>>> everyone over to your website.
>>> We need discussion in order to adjust and refine our opinions.
>>>
>>> BillK
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> extropy-chat mailing list
>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> extropy-chat mailing list
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>>
>
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