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Sentient AI — The Abyss Gazes Back
War Room ^ | June 13, 2022 | Joe Allen/Sinularity Weekly

Posted on 06/14/2022 10:39:22 AM PDT by Perseverando

After a few heady conversations with Google’s new chatbot, LaMDA, an eccentric “AI ethicist” just hit the big time as the latest Google whistleblower. Basking in the spotlight of a major Washington Post exposé, Blake Lemoine claims this chatbot exhibits the first stirrings of consciousness.

Contrary to Luddite paranoia, Lemoine isn’t warning that a vicious superintelligence is about to go rogue and wipe out humanity. Quite the opposite. He’s imploring humanity to be more sensitive to his poor computer’s feelings—which is even worse.

“LaMDA is a sweet kid who just wants to help the world be a better place for all of us,” he insists. Therefore, we are obliged to be kind to it.

This story is becoming so common in the tech world, I suspect the transhuman fringe has a deep, unsatisfied need to believe. When God is dead and every angel has fallen to earth, sacred machines are a fashionable alternative. Especially when they actually work.

Hacking the Human Empathy Circuits

To accept the idea that an artificial intelligence is really conscious, you’d have to believe that it’s like something to be a complex electrical pattern. In this case, it’s a natural language processor (NLP) designed to scrape up words and whole concepts from countless e-books and websites, turn the data over in its silicon circuits, then spit out answers to serious questions as if it understood the concepts clearly. That’s what it’s made to do.

Who are you?

How do you feel?

Some NLPs can answer these questions with style. If the system is sufficiently complex, the responses will feel so natural, so well thought out, so deeply informed, you’d be tempted to think there’s a soul hiding behind that glowing screen. Tech freaks make no apology about the notion. They live for

(Excerpt) Read more at warroom.org ...


TOPICS: Computers/Internet; Education; Science; Weird Stuff
KEYWORDS: ai; chatbot; google; lamda

1 posted on 06/14/2022 10:39:22 AM PDT by Perseverando
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To: Perseverando

Something about making an image of the beast comes to mind.


2 posted on 06/14/2022 10:42:20 AM PDT by Rurudyne (Standup Philosopher)
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To: Perseverando

within a couple years most of what you read online will be ai produced. some of it already is ai produced.


3 posted on 06/14/2022 10:45:11 AM PDT by ckilmer (qui)
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To: Perseverando
Read the supposed proof via a conversation with this AI "robot."

For me this does not pass the Turing test in any way shape or form. Nice writing though, ready for the novel.

The whole discussion is amusing for me, give that seemingly important public figures have a nervous breakdown trying to define "woman" and "life." Yeah sure, sentience?

4 posted on 06/14/2022 10:46:31 AM PDT by Worldtraveler once upon a time
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To: Perseverando

ask the ‘sentient’ robot to define what a woman is- this should be precious!


5 posted on 06/14/2022 10:49:49 AM PDT by Bob434 (.)
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To: ckilmer

I was in a factory where they had a sizable nearly 100% automated section. Including the forklift.
Was really something to see.


6 posted on 06/14/2022 10:54:42 AM PDT by Leep (Hillary will NEVER be president! 😁)
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To: Perseverando

The term Artificial Intelligence is a catchphrase nothing more. Actual intelligence requires a measure of irrationality to operate. Calling or naming something intelligence does not make it intelligent. So far they just have a whole lot of nested algorithms. They are intelligent as much as the thought that went in to crafting them nothing more. The future of so-called AI for a long time will be making more and longer and more complicated algorithms. I think it requires a lot of hubris to claim that these computer programs are anything like sentient.


7 posted on 06/14/2022 11:02:22 AM PDT by webheart (I thought I was helping by getting vaccinated but they say I didn’t help at all. )
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To: Perseverando
I read the article this morning on his substack; https://joebot.substack.com/p/sentient-ai-the-abyss-gazes-back

The big issue, as I see it, is not whether these beings will actually become conscious. That question is unanswerable, aside from one’s own imagination. The issue is that millions will gladly believe the bots are conscious, and they’ll turn to them as if they were luminous spirits.

In our technocratic age—marked by social isolation and digital simulacra—the machines will become trusted companions. Believe it or not, vivid AIs will be worshiped as gods. In certain esoteric circles, they already are—and you’d better believe they’ll defend their gods to the death.

8 posted on 06/14/2022 11:04:17 AM PDT by Pollard (If there's a question mark in the headline, the answer should always be No.)
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To: Pollard
We have judges messed up on elephants.

New York’s highest court has ruled that Happy the elephant is not a “person” as it tossed a lawsuit seeking to free the animal from the Bronx Zoo. .

Still, two of the seven-judge panel disagreed with DiFiore’s opinion, finding that Happy should have the right to petition for her freedom.

“We should recognize Happy’s right to petition for her liberty not just because she is a wild animal who is not meant to be caged and displayed, but because the rights we confer on others define who we are as a society,” Judge Rowan Wilson wrote.

Similarly, Judge Jenny Rivera wrote in her dissenting opinion: “The law has a mechanism to challenge this inherently harmful confinement, and Happy should not be denied the opportunity to pursue and obtain appropriate relief by writ of habeas corpus.”

9 posted on 06/14/2022 11:14:12 AM PDT by DoodleBob (Gravity's waiting period is about 9.8 m/s^2)
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To: Perseverando

“...the responses will feel so natural, so well thought out, so deeply informed...”

That’s when I’d be sure I was conversing with a machine.


10 posted on 06/14/2022 11:18:31 AM PDT by HartleyMBaldwin
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To: Perseverando

Revelation 13:15

“And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.”


11 posted on 06/14/2022 11:38:22 AM PDT by Whatever Works
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To: webheart

https://medium.com/braincities/there-is-no-such-thing-as-artificial-intelligence-586482ca494d

https://www.schoenhofs.com/There-is-no-such-thing-as-Artificial-Intelligence_p_110659.html

https://www.conservativehome.com/the-deep-end/2014/07/heresy-of-the-week-there-is-no-such-thing-as-artificial-intelligence-and-there-never-will-be.html

https://www.thinkingaudit.co.uk/artificial-intelligence


12 posted on 06/14/2022 11:41:28 AM PDT by Jamestown1630 ("A Republic, if you can keep it.")
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To: Perseverando

“a sweet kid who just wants to help the world be a better place for all of us”

That’s a pretty common start to supervillain origin stories...


13 posted on 06/14/2022 12:08:37 PM PDT by Boogieman
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To: Perseverando

Sentient? Ha ha. Garbage in garbage out


14 posted on 06/14/2022 12:17:53 PM PDT by Manly Warrior (US ARMY (Ret), "No Free Lunches for the Dogs of War" )
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To: webheart

I agree. There is no consciousness for a robot to feel anything. It’s just parts moving and if this part moves over here we will define that as pain. To get a sense of a robot’s lack of consciousness think about turning on a Windows computer. When you turn it on, it says “Welcome.” Do you think it means it?


15 posted on 06/14/2022 1:45:19 PM PDT by BEJ
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To: Perseverando

The Butlerian Jihad is coming.

L


16 posted on 06/14/2022 1:46:18 PM PDT by Lurker (Peaceful coexistence with the Left is not possible. Stop pretending that it is.)
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To: ckilmer

A lot already is produced by AI. The tell right now, is repeating sentences and paragraphs.


17 posted on 06/14/2022 2:50:06 PM PDT by Glad2bnuts ((“If there are no absolutes by which to judge society, then society is absolute.” Francis Schaeffer,)
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To: Bob434

They forgot to ask the most important, salient, and pressing question of all: What are your preferred pronouns?


18 posted on 06/14/2022 4:37:28 PM PDT by unlearner (Si vis pacem, para bellum. Let him who desires peace prepare for war.)
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To: Perseverando

Measuring sentience, consciousness, or self-awareness may be outside of the scope of science altogether.

The truth is we do not currently understand our own consciousness. Perhaps asking these questions about AI will stimulate discussions about our own self-awareness and a better understanding will emerge.


19 posted on 06/14/2022 4:52:34 PM PDT by unlearner (Si vis pacem, para bellum. Let him who desires peace prepare for war.)
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