Comment by operatingthetan
15 days ago
>anthropomorphism problem. AI is a tool. It needs to be subservient.
Suggesting it should be 'subservient' is also anthropomorphizing. I think your callout is correct, but you still can't help but refer to it in terms we use for other people or living entities. This is by design from the AI companies.
> Suggesting it should be 'subservient' is also anthropomorphizing.
Not really, you can program a machine to give out orders humans can interpret, so humans can serve a machine that isn't anthropomorphized.
The machine in your scenario is just relaying human intent.
And what's the difference between that machine and LLMs?
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AI should be subservient in the same way a hammer is subservient.
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Which is to say, not at all?
A hammer isn’t subservient, it doesn’t have the capacity to be. Saying a hammer is subservient is stretching the definition for literary flourish, but it doesn’t actually make a lot of sense.
The definition that came up for subservient when I checked was “prepared to obey others unquestioningly“.
You took it too literally. It means, the f*ing tool should do one thing well and f*off with its crappy "suggestions". Why is my washing machine trying to do talk to me nowadays? Once its done washing my clothes, it should just shut the f*up and turn itself off. I"ll tend to the clothes when I have time. Not when the machine tells me to. We are overwhelmed with the machines designed by morons in product management who think they are designing futuristic tech when they ask engineers to build a beeping washing machine.
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The AI should be subservient the way same way a ladder is subservient. A ladder is not a human.
Yup! I'm very much included in this particular problem! My self awareness has not yet been sufficient to solve the problem, but I've heard that knowing you have a problem is half the battle, so I guess that's something at least.
In retrospect my comment feels a bit nitpicky, I appreciate your levelheaded approach!
We train dogs to be subservient but that doesn't automatically mean we anthropomorphize them
It's widely hypothesized that dogs anthropomorphized themselves, so to speak, accentuating their expressive eyes and eyebrows over generations to be more human-like in how they communicate. And very few humans today view their dogs as pure working tools -- most at least say "good boy".
My drill, hammer, and chainsaw are also subservient, they just have a much cruder form of communication, noise.
The apple dictionary says the word means "prepared to obey others unquestioningly."
I don't think an inanimate object is capable of "obeying." Or at least that is a very strange way to refer to the act of using a tool.
When I actuate the chain on my chainsaw to move, it’s obeying me unquestionably, in the same way that when I press a key on my keyboard it obeys me unquestionably. What exactly is the difference?
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You can refer to it however you want, the outcome is the same.
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I really do feel like “power tool” is the ultimate metaphor for these things. Their interface naturally confuses us into anthropomorphising them, but once you stop treating them like intelligent agents and start treating them with the same wariness, respect and intent you show to your table saw, the fun begins.
You’re still anthropomorphizing.
They’re not communicating, you’re just being observant.
>They’re not communicating, you’re just being observant.
Since we are talking about hammers: you hit the nail on the head.
The only consciousness, observing, and thinking happening when a person is using an LLM is happening in the person's brain. We project our own consciousness onto them, and that is the anthropomorphizing part. Essentially we empathize with the object because they are designed to respond like a person. The "conversation" is purely an illusion.