Comment by virgildotcodes
6 days ago
It's funny because the fundamental thing I'm speaking out against is the arrogance of human exceptionalism.
This whole debate about what it means to be intelligent or human just seems like we're making the same mistakes we've made over and over.
Earth as the center of the universe, sun as the center of the universe, man as the only animal with consciousness and intellect, the anthropomorphic nature of the majority of the deities in our religions and the anthropocentric purpose of the universe within those religions...
I think this desire to believe that we are special, that the universe in some way does ultimately revolve around us, is seemingly a deep need in our psyche but any material analysis of our universe shows that it is extremely unlikely that we hold that position.
The need for human exceptionalism doesn't come from the psyche or anything like that, it's just basic survival skills. Humans believe themselves to be special because that's the only belief that isn't self-destructive.
You can choose to believe humans are not exceptional, in the same way I can choose to cut off all my fingers and eat them. Why would I do that?
If what you say about LLMs is true, that's bad for me. And for you. And for our families. Because it means our instrinic value of living just went down a lot. I choose not to believe it because I am not suicidal. And, ultimately, I think the people who do believe it can only ever make their lives worse. Probably my life worse too, but maybe if I'm all the way over here I'll avoid the blast radius.