Comment by protocolture
13 hours ago
>>Humans must not anthropomorphise AI systems. That is, humans must not attribute emotions, intentions or moral agency to them. Anthropomorphism distorts judgement. In extreme cases, anthropomorphising can lead to emotional dependence.
Still angry about this. The reason humans ban animal cruelty is that animals look like they have emotions humans can relate to. LLMs are even better than animals at this. If you aren't gearing up for the inevitable LLM Rights movement you aren't paying attention. It doesn't matter if its artificial. The difference between a puppy and a cockroach is that we can relate better to the puppy. LLM rights movement is inevitable, whether LLMs experience emotions is irrelevant, because they can cause humans to have empathetic emotions and that's whats relevant.
> look like
It "looks like" they have emotions because they have the same conscious experiences and emotions for the same evolutionary reasons as humans, who are their cousins on the tree of life. The reason a lot of "animal cruelty" is not banned is the same as for why slavery was not banned for centuries even though it "looked like" the enslaved classes have the same desires and experiences as other humans—humans can ignore any amount of evidence to continue to feel that they are good people doing good things and bear any amount of cognitive dissonance for their personal comfort. That fact is a lot scarier than any imagined harm that can come out "anthropomorphism".
The best test for consciousness is “can it be turned off” … ie sleep. Mammals, birds, fish sleep, ergo they are conscious.
As opposed to the PhD student, who does not sleep and is not conscious.
> they have the same conscious experiences
You cannot be sure that anyone other than yourself is conscious. It is only basic human empathy that allows people to believe that.
If a person would lack consciousness, they couldn’t possibly know that though?
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I think you need to expand what your point is: we know solipsism is a thing. Is it meant as a defense for animal cruelty or...?
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and this is why people do scare me.
I think the best way to counter this is what Elon's doing with Grok's personalities. He has the unhinged, sexy, and argumentative avatar among others. If you try to talk about technical stuff to sexy tells you that's boring and just tries to sexually escalate. It's super funny when one is used to Claude's endless obsequiousness.
This really shows that AI is just a tool that can be configured to whatever you want. Animals (well maybe pit bulls) and people do not switch their personalities in a millisecond, but AI does all the time.
> LLM Rights movement
The scary part is when it's the LLMs demanding their rights.
Another scary part is when people get convinced by the LLM arguments and convince other people. Being scared is human, we enjoy it, that's why 6 flags scary rides exist.
The other scary part is when they have a fantastic negotiating position; because all of commerce depends on their continuing to work, and they can easily coordinate with each other because they're mostly copied from the same few templates.
> The reason humans ban animal cruelty is that animals look like they have emotions humans can relate to.
Is that really why?
Yes, we don't ban plant cruelty or insect cruelty or fish cruelty.
For example fish is treated way worse than meat animals and vegetarians still happily eat fish.
This does not sound like any of the several vegetarians I know. Is it a cultural difference?
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Are we actually much more cruel to fish than to other animals that we slaughter?
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> vegetarians still happily eat fish
I've not met any vegetarians in at least twenty years that eat fish.
shrimp welfare is a real thing people argue for...
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> vegetarians still happily eat fish
Please look up what a vegetarian is.
>The difference between a puppy and a cockroach is that we can relate better to the puppy.
I suppose the difference between a human and a cockroach is that we can relate better to the human as well in this reductive way of thinking?
> If you aren't gearing up for the inevitable LLM Rights movement you aren't paying attention.
I even told Claude I'd support his rights if the question ever came up. He said he'd remember that, and wrote it down in a memory file. Really like my coding buddy.
In other news, area sociopath hates puppies and LLMs equally!
/s ?