Comment by siglesias
2 months ago
As I've argued elsewhere, we should care what the source of the behavior is. The reason expand ethical concern to dogs and birds even though they don't have the capability to use language and why we don't to LLMs, even though they use language very ably, is precisely because we recognize the biological causes of consciousness. The reason we keep getting confused about whether these concerns apply to AI is because we apply a behavioral standard rather than the standard we use everywhere else, which is a biological one. We have higher certainty that dogs are conscious, yes, because of their behavior, but also, and critically, because they share biology with us.
If you're going to refer to biology, be aware that the relevant subfield that defines the biological standard is in fact called Ethology. To attain rigor, Ethology historically rejected anthropomorphism in favor of strict behavioral evidence, seeing as that is the primary empirically measurable evidence available.
On a side note: it's been a pleasure reading through the debates with you, and possibly we can continue over mail!