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Ted Chiang on the question of LLM consciousness, Anthropic's fantastical "constitution," and the repulsive end state of its thought experiments.
Chiang is the best to ever do it, in my opinion, when it comes to breaking down LLM hype in clear, compelling, readable prose, and this may be his best yet. The whole thing is deeply quotable, but a few standouts:
Chiang is the best to ever do it, in my opinion, when it comes to breaking down LLM hype in clear, compelling, readable prose, and this may be his best yet. The whole thing is deeply quotable, but a few standouts:
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. Even if the Microsoft Office team employed a philosopher who said you shouldn't be so certain, because consciousness is not well understood, that would not be sufficient reason for you to take this idea seriously. ... In a New Yorker article about Anthropic earlier this year, Amanda Askell describes how a person grieving the loss of a dog might consult Claude. Askell says an appropriate response from Claude would be, "As an A.I., I do not have direct personal experiences, but I do understand." How is this appropriate, given that Claude does not actually understand? If I type "I am grieving the loss of my dog" into a conventional search engine, the first result I get is a post from a Reddit forum called r/Pets; the post is titled "Struggling After Losing My Dog: Looking for Advice on Coping with Grief," and the comments are from people who share their experiences of loss. We would never say that a search engine understands what it's like to lose a dog, or even that the internet itself understands. Other humans understand what it's like to lose a dog; they have posted about their experiences on the internet, and a search engine offers a way for you to find what they've said (and to potentially interact with them). I would argue that the search-engine experience is not only more transparent than a chatbot about what is happening; it is psychologically healthier for the user. ... Employing philosophers might endow LLM companies with an air of respectability that slot-machine makers don't get from the behavioral psychologists they hire, but in both cases the companies are preying on people's tendency to see something that's not there.
Meta is scaling back parts of its employee tracking initiative after staff objected to software that collected mouse movements, clicks, keystrokes, and other actions for AI training data. According to Reuters, the company will now let workers pause collection for up to 30 minutes and request exemptions. Reuters reports: [Stephane Kasriel, a vice president in Meta's AI model-building Superintelligence Labs unit] said the team behind the software had also introduced "several optimizations" to reduce its impact on computer battery life, after employees complained it was consuming so much data it was causing their home internet usage to spike. "While we remain confident in the privacy protections we put in place at launch, which went through several layers of risk review, we have heard your concerns about personal data on work devices, battery life, and wanting more control over when capturing happens," Kasriel said in the memo.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Niet verder vertellen maar veel van die vleesvervangers van bijvoorbeeld De Vegetarische Slager zijn echt prima te doen, om maar niet te zeggen, hartstikke lekker. Goed nieuws dus voor mensen die vlees mijden, en willen dat anderen hun levensstijl overnemen. Klaarblijkelijk heeft de Burger King (goor) naast gewone hamburgers (zijn goor) nu ook vegetarische burgers (vermoedelijk eveneens goor), en maken ze daar overal in Amsterdam reclame voor. Maar! Sinds 1 mei geldt in de hoofdstad een vleesreclameverbod, en die vegetarische burgers, die dus een enorme doorbraak vormen voor mensen die vlees mijden en willen dat anderen hun levensstijl overnemen, lijken optisch heel erg op reguliere hamburgers. Dus nu hangt de halve stad vol met posters van vleesloze Burger King burgers, maar je moet heel goed kijken om dat te zien, of zo, en dus is het heel erg. Althans, ze gaan het verbod pas in 2027 handhaven, dus eigenlijk maakt het geen vegetarische gehaktbal uit, maar dat doet niets af aan de verwarring en verontwaardiging over de materie, om nog maar te zwijgen over de verwarring en verontwaardiging die weer is ontstaan over deze verwarring en verontwaardiging. Een verhaal dat alleen verliezers kent, zou je zeggen, maar dat is buiten JA21 om gedacht, want oud-fractievoorzitter Kevin Kreuger waarschuwde hier vorig jaar al voor, en dus kan JA21 doen waarin de partij het allerbest is: een filmpje op sociale media plaatsen.
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