Great post, but also, I’m guessing a lot of the people you’re responding to would be skeptical that humans can be reduced to a wave function. And while I think they’re directionally wrong, there is something to be said for the fact that the universe and humans remain mysterious in some fundamental ways. Eg, quantum mechanics doesn’t mesh with general relativity, and neither seem to explain how subjective experiences arise. Of course, none of this justifies thought-terminating metaphors about AI.
I kept waiting for an Intentional Stance reference that never came. Totally reasonable to avoid explicitly invoking the jargon, and Dennett would be proud either way!
If people are so unwilling to accept basic use of metaphors, I’m going to have to insist that they stop muromorphising their computer pointing peripherals.
Yes. And it needs to be perpetually reminded that something is not what we call anthropomorphism, in a sense that it's ascribing human-like properties to a non-human entity which don't actually exist in that entity (be it AI or non-human animals), if those properties are clearly proven to be present. With AI, this dismissal of descriptions usually focuses on their actual documented behavior, and the assertion that a level of intent or consciousness if required for the behaviors to fundamentally exist, or even further, that they must be literal humans for those behaviors to happen. With non-human animals, it usually focuses on their inner experience/sentience, and a denial of biological science when it conflicts with anthropocentric attitudes.
Nice! AI is not just a tool . But metaphors are not just simplifications as recent philosophers of science such Margaret Morrison, Mary Morgan and Amie Thomasson have suggested.
Great post, but also, I’m guessing a lot of the people you’re responding to would be skeptical that humans can be reduced to a wave function. And while I think they’re directionally wrong, there is something to be said for the fact that the universe and humans remain mysterious in some fundamental ways. Eg, quantum mechanics doesn’t mesh with general relativity, and neither seem to explain how subjective experiences arise. Of course, none of this justifies thought-terminating metaphors about AI.
As usual, Yudkowsky scooped us all by a couple of decades.
https://www.lesswrong.com/s/SGB7Y5WERh4skwtnb
I kept waiting for an Intentional Stance reference that never came. Totally reasonable to avoid explicitly invoking the jargon, and Dennett would be proud either way!
I was weighing it but was worried this was jargony enough
Guy who doesn't like ascribing folk psychological concepts to LLMs because he's an eliminative materialist
If people are so unwilling to accept basic use of metaphors, I’m going to have to insist that they stop muromorphising their computer pointing peripherals.
Yes. And it needs to be perpetually reminded that something is not what we call anthropomorphism, in a sense that it's ascribing human-like properties to a non-human entity which don't actually exist in that entity (be it AI or non-human animals), if those properties are clearly proven to be present. With AI, this dismissal of descriptions usually focuses on their actual documented behavior, and the assertion that a level of intent or consciousness if required for the behaviors to fundamentally exist, or even further, that they must be literal humans for those behaviors to happen. With non-human animals, it usually focuses on their inner experience/sentience, and a denial of biological science when it conflicts with anthropocentric attitudes.
Nice! AI is not just a tool . But metaphors are not just simplifications as recent philosophers of science such Margaret Morrison, Mary Morgan and Amie Thomasson have suggested.
"One example that drives me crazy is the statement that AI is “just a tool.”"
Something a little haunting is that the ancient romans referred to slaves as "instrumentum vocale", or "talking tools".