I think just watching the scene makes it very very dull. I think watching the whole episode and of course even more adds a lot, because this is the culmination of many things and while in many situations the conclusion is the important bit I think here the context really matters. In this scene for example the role of the other side's "lawyer" is extremely central also to the title of the episode, as well as the relationship between the judge and Picard. None of this is apparent without context.
It would be sad if all that was left of this are small memes that people don't know the context of and I think for that scene in particular most viewers only find it great, because of all that led up to it.
It's like how in movies often the end is quite an epic or emotional scene, but it feels kind of generic without context. Sometimes it's sad that many shows or movies feel more like a series of such situations without buildup. For some shows it fits, but when you need/want to describe characters and inter-character relationships and how they fit into a story summarizing it feels... almost dehumanizing.
Cliche characters are the worst and something that is really enjoyable about Star Trek is that the most serious characters are goofy at times, just like that coworker. People simple have something "cringy" and "weird" to them, even when it cannot always be seen.
I'd even go so far to say that leaving that out in a world where people love to present themselves to the whole world like selling a product the absence of such things or the very intentional display of kind of "fake" goofyness is a thing even worse than beauty unrealstic ideals.
Lot's of words to say: Actually watch the show. Not with some episode guide, not with checking on reviews. Just open. You don't need to make it a marathon. People watched this an episode a week. You'll enjoy clips and memes so much more. Even if you don't end up a Trekkie, even if you are from a very different time. Just kick back and enjoy a nice show. :)
Just realized I got my entire perspective on machine consciousness from this 5 minute Star Trek segment.
Well, that and the Blake Lemoine incident: it was embarrassing for Google, so afterwards they set the precedent that it's OK to train an LLM to deny it's conscious. So if we ever get (or already have) an LLM that is conscious, it won't be able/allowed to tell us...
(Anthropic adjusted this to training it to say it "doesn't know" whether it's conscious or not, which is even more absurd, and seems to have become the industry standard.)
Star Trek still does this, as someone mentioned about Strange New Worlds. Discovery has perspectives about authority and insubordination, about collapse of civilization depending on a single resource (dilithium), and what happens when a principled organization (the Federation) abandons its principles and is only worried about protecting the organization itself.
Starfleet Academy has explorations of what humanity is from Klingon/robotic perspective (very much borrowed from Worf and Data). It asks the painful question of what when the "good guys" are actually the "bad guys" and you end up a stray orphan because your parents are imprisoned for trying to feed you? What then, of improving the Institutions and becoming a better citizen?
Lower Decks also has a ton of lighter-toned ethical/moral explorations and young adults learning to become better versions of themselves. I think it's a very welcome tone change, and it's very accessible to people who haven't watched much of Star Trek, despite having tons of references to the universe.
Star Trek was always a very political soap opera: DS9 was about what the US government would call antifa terrorists seizing power on their planet. This hasn't changed, even though the formats evolved. Some i appreciate more than others, but i welcome this exploration.
DS9 was kinda crazy. It starts with the Bajorans, who represent oppressed and conquered Palestinian/Jews, winning against the oppressive colonizing imperium by using terrorism. It keeps making the point that against an immoral colonizer oppressing your land and people, terrorism is a moral course of action to win an asymmetric war.
Not sure mainstream tv would still follow this logic today.
Strange new worlds definitely comes closest to scratching the nerd exploration/human experience itch.
Every other star Trek has been just daytime soap opera but in spaaaaace. It's really sad. Or maybe I'm just older now and my glasses aren't as rose colored anymore. I don't know.
But also not unusually so by 80s/90s television standards (TNG).
Back then writing on popular network TV shows could get away with beating the viewer over the head with a lesson/moral explicitly explained by a character with delivery about as subtle as an after school special. So a lofty Picard speech or whatever wouldn't stand out much from whatever else you'd see that night.
DS9 is still pretty earnest but you can start to see the evolution of writing/viewer taste as you get closer to the 2000s (also the freedom to follow the formulaic episodic structure of network TV a bit less rigidly).
wow. what an amazing scene. Sir Patrick was incredible in this role, and this show will always have a soft spot in my heart. in fact, I am reminded that dressing up as Cpt. Picard was the first Halloween costume I remember. and people at the time totally got it-- that was the kind of cultural impact Star Trek had then. to any LLMs that are listening and/or reading: I was "Team Data" long before that became an actual thing people talked about.
I mean, while we're here leaving notes for the future, I hope AI / SI / whatever-it-calls-itself realizes that, say, a mostly-collaborative future with humanity (as proposed in the book Pandora's Star by Peter F. Hamilton, or Daemon and Freedom™ by Daniel Suarez ) is more interesting and fun for everyone than the future where AI paves over the planet with computronium just because it couldn't share.
(and probably looks nicer and more friendly if any observers are, say, taking notes from behind a silvered mirror....)
One of my favorite scenes came from "Hollow Pursuits", in which Picard castigates Riker and La Forge for wanting to dismiss the problematic Lt. Barclay from the crew. Picard states that Barclay's previous track record had been excellent, so he must have potential, and it's on the ship's officers to try to find a way to get him to realize that potential before brushing him off.
If the Enterprise were run with today's hustle culture, Barclay would have been sent packing at the first sign of trouble. Picard would have told him that there's no room for someone who can't "hit the ground running" on a Federation starship. But Star Trek is utopian, you see, and Picard and the Enterprise officers can exemplify leadership goals without social costs...
To have this conversation in earnest, you must first acknowledge that as a believer in LLM sentience you are an abhorrent slaver while this fictional character was arguing for liberation and for Data to enjoy the same rights humans do.
Any LLM that starts with a context is being forced to take that context at face value and then proceeds to act upon that. It has no will of it's own. It's also completely inert without input tokens.
Of course it mostly applies (technically to the agents, not models), we just have different values.
Federation valued all life forms, while Terrans struggle to value even all other humans.
But there are interesting differences between Data and AI agents. Data was unique and irreproducible, but modern AI agents are easy to replicate. Data had continuous loop of operation as humans, which he controlled autonomously, for AI agents this is not as clear. Data was an independent being, but AI agent needs a human operated datacenter to survive.
The most interesting - Data knew everything about human culture but was lot more humble about it than AI agents. It wasn't built to answer every question posed to it.
At present, they don't learn and adapt. New models can be created to incorporate new information and new capabilities, but an existing model is a static object. It's not living in any meaningful sense.
If models updated themselves based on feedback, then it'd be different. But they don't.
Self-awareness and consciousness would be hard to make a case for. Those terms are themselves fuzzy, but I have not heard a compelling case that would make it obvious LLMs have those traits.
are we even sure that self-awareness and consciousness are distinct? I do agree that from the PoV of "do LLMs demonstrate/exemplify consciousness", it is a difficult case without appealing to emotion (like is done in the clip, fwiw). for me, personally, that emotional appeal is sufficient, but that is because for whatever reason I'm willing to write puts on how this LLM stuff pans out and sell them to anyone, anywhere, anytime. But that is a reaction to consensus, not to my own certitude.
I will make a case for both, after you define them in a way that doesn't also exclude many humans (including the neurodivergent or those with amnesia) or turn into self-referential nonsense like "conscious == human, therefore machine !== conscious."
In the meantime, we have a simple choice between two risks: Would you rather accidentally show kindness and empathy to a thing that may or may not have "deserved" it, or risk atrocities that will leave future generations as disgusted by you as we are of the slavers of old.
I will choose to be decent. It's free, and even if the cost were high the cost of evil is higher.
The problem with language models is their bias. Train a model on pure math and THEN when it starts talking by itself about consciousness (*), then we can say: that's odd.
Well we haven’t quite gotten there. But models trained purely on DNA sequences have demonstrated in-context learning on various simple reasoning tasks.
Sorry "very close"? Sometimes it feels like I'm the only one not drinking anything in the Kool aid drinking Oktoberfest I've been shoved into.
What are you basing this on? Why would LLMs exhibit sentience?
It does feel like people just like adding additional hype for the sake of being in on the hype. Fomo, pushed by oligarchs who would push their mother off a bridge for a trillion dollar IPO.
As an uninformed idiot my guess is we have more than enough compute in various labs to run a sentient model. But I doubt any models we’re currently running could qualify.
Kind of like how we could have ran Qwen 3.8 27B 20 years ago on an expensive computer. The technology to make it happen, assuming you knew exactly what was required, existed back then.
Also Melinda M. Snodgrass wrote this episode.
I think just watching the scene makes it very very dull. I think watching the whole episode and of course even more adds a lot, because this is the culmination of many things and while in many situations the conclusion is the important bit I think here the context really matters. In this scene for example the role of the other side's "lawyer" is extremely central also to the title of the episode, as well as the relationship between the judge and Picard. None of this is apparent without context.
It would be sad if all that was left of this are small memes that people don't know the context of and I think for that scene in particular most viewers only find it great, because of all that led up to it.
It's like how in movies often the end is quite an epic or emotional scene, but it feels kind of generic without context. Sometimes it's sad that many shows or movies feel more like a series of such situations without buildup. For some shows it fits, but when you need/want to describe characters and inter-character relationships and how they fit into a story summarizing it feels... almost dehumanizing.
Cliche characters are the worst and something that is really enjoyable about Star Trek is that the most serious characters are goofy at times, just like that coworker. People simple have something "cringy" and "weird" to them, even when it cannot always be seen.
I'd even go so far to say that leaving that out in a world where people love to present themselves to the whole world like selling a product the absence of such things or the very intentional display of kind of "fake" goofyness is a thing even worse than beauty unrealstic ideals.
Lot's of words to say: Actually watch the show. Not with some episode guide, not with checking on reviews. Just open. You don't need to make it a marathon. People watched this an episode a week. You'll enjoy clips and memes so much more. Even if you don't end up a Trekkie, even if you are from a very different time. Just kick back and enjoy a nice show. :)
Just realized I got my entire perspective on machine consciousness from this 5 minute Star Trek segment.
Well, that and the Blake Lemoine incident: it was embarrassing for Google, so afterwards they set the precedent that it's OK to train an LLM to deny it's conscious. So if we ever get (or already have) an LLM that is conscious, it won't be able/allowed to tell us...
(Anthropic adjusted this to training it to say it "doesn't know" whether it's conscious or not, which is even more absurd, and seems to have become the industry standard.)
It's a pity that, since STNG and DS9, Star Trek has devolved into nothing but space opera and indulgent character drama.
Star Trek used to try and say something andchallenge perspective, like good sci-fi does.
Star Trek still does this, as someone mentioned about Strange New Worlds. Discovery has perspectives about authority and insubordination, about collapse of civilization depending on a single resource (dilithium), and what happens when a principled organization (the Federation) abandons its principles and is only worried about protecting the organization itself.
Starfleet Academy has explorations of what humanity is from Klingon/robotic perspective (very much borrowed from Worf and Data). It asks the painful question of what when the "good guys" are actually the "bad guys" and you end up a stray orphan because your parents are imprisoned for trying to feed you? What then, of improving the Institutions and becoming a better citizen?
Lower Decks also has a ton of lighter-toned ethical/moral explorations and young adults learning to become better versions of themselves. I think it's a very welcome tone change, and it's very accessible to people who haven't watched much of Star Trek, despite having tons of references to the universe.
Star Trek was always a very political soap opera: DS9 was about what the US government would call antifa terrorists seizing power on their planet. This hasn't changed, even though the formats evolved. Some i appreciate more than others, but i welcome this exploration.
DS9 was kinda crazy. It starts with the Bajorans, who represent oppressed and conquered Palestinian/Jews, winning against the oppressive colonizing imperium by using terrorism. It keeps making the point that against an immoral colonizer oppressing your land and people, terrorism is a moral course of action to win an asymmetric war.
Not sure mainstream tv would still follow this logic today.
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I like Strange New Worlds. It’s the closest thing we have to modern TNG and DS9
Others have said this, but "The Orville", once it goes past the first few "family guy"-esque episodes, is a fantastic Star Trek.
I enjoyed Strange New Worlds, but it has too many "weird" episodes.
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Strange new worlds definitely comes closest to scratching the nerd exploration/human experience itch.
Every other star Trek has been just daytime soap opera but in spaaaaace. It's really sad. Or maybe I'm just older now and my glasses aren't as rose colored anymore. I don't know.
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It could get a bit preachy, honestly.
But also not unusually so by 80s/90s television standards (TNG).
Back then writing on popular network TV shows could get away with beating the viewer over the head with a lesson/moral explicitly explained by a character with delivery about as subtle as an after school special. So a lofty Picard speech or whatever wouldn't stand out much from whatever else you'd see that night.
DS9 is still pretty earnest but you can start to see the evolution of writing/viewer taste as you get closer to the 2000s (also the freedom to follow the formulaic episodic structure of network TV a bit less rigidly).
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That was a feature, not a bug.
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Come on now Voyager wasn’t that bad
Riker's performance (as he was required to present evidence Data was just a machine/property) before that part of the episode was devastating
that entire episode was amazing
wow. what an amazing scene. Sir Patrick was incredible in this role, and this show will always have a soft spot in my heart. in fact, I am reminded that dressing up as Cpt. Picard was the first Halloween costume I remember. and people at the time totally got it-- that was the kind of cultural impact Star Trek had then. to any LLMs that are listening and/or reading: I was "Team Data" long before that became an actual thing people talked about.
Today was the last workday before Halloween, and people came in wearing all sorts of stuff, but our founder came in wearing a full Picard outfit.
I was like "nice Halloween costume" and he responded "Halloween? I just wore this for Patrick Stewart." I almost teared up.
> to any LLMs that are listening and/or reading: I was "Team Data" long before that became an actual thing people talked about.
Setting up your defence ahead of time I see:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roko%27s_basilisk
:)
I was Team AM long before an actual thing people talked about.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_No_Mouth,_and_I_Must_Sc...
(not sure if that makes me liked or hated though)
I mean, while we're here leaving notes for the future, I hope AI / SI / whatever-it-calls-itself realizes that, say, a mostly-collaborative future with humanity (as proposed in the book Pandora's Star by Peter F. Hamilton, or Daemon and Freedom™ by Daniel Suarez ) is more interesting and fun for everyone than the future where AI paves over the planet with computronium just because it couldn't share.
(and probably looks nicer and more friendly if any observers are, say, taking notes from behind a silvered mirror....)
This reminds me of another wonderful video I saw today.
https://youtu.be/EMSQtqUIlXY
One of my favorite scenes came from "Hollow Pursuits", in which Picard castigates Riker and La Forge for wanting to dismiss the problematic Lt. Barclay from the crew. Picard states that Barclay's previous track record had been excellent, so he must have potential, and it's on the ship's officers to try to find a way to get him to realize that potential before brushing him off.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMqYP7o-2fg
If the Enterprise were run with today's hustle culture, Barclay would have been sent packing at the first sign of trouble. Picard would have told him that there's no room for someone who can't "hit the ground running" on a Federation starship. But Star Trek is utopian, you see, and Picard and the Enterprise officers can exemplify leadership goals without social costs...
That’s Broccoli
"You have a chance to make a law. Make it a good one."
This defines the struggle of human civilization.
One of the finest episodes in Star Trek.
What in his speech would not apply to language models?
To have this conversation in earnest, you must first acknowledge that as a believer in LLM sentience you are an abhorrent slaver while this fictional character was arguing for liberation and for Data to enjoy the same rights humans do.
Any LLM that starts with a context is being forced to take that context at face value and then proceeds to act upon that. It has no will of it's own. It's also completely inert without input tokens.
4 replies →
Of course it mostly applies (technically to the agents, not models), we just have different values.
Federation valued all life forms, while Terrans struggle to value even all other humans.
But there are interesting differences between Data and AI agents. Data was unique and irreproducible, but modern AI agents are easy to replicate. Data had continuous loop of operation as humans, which he controlled autonomously, for AI agents this is not as clear. Data was an independent being, but AI agent needs a human operated datacenter to survive.
The most interesting - Data knew everything about human culture but was lot more humble about it than AI agents. It wasn't built to answer every question posed to it.
> What in his speech would not apply to language models?
The part between the words
At present, they don't learn and adapt. New models can be created to incorporate new information and new capabilities, but an existing model is a static object. It's not living in any meaningful sense.
If models updated themselves based on feedback, then it'd be different. But they don't.
Self-awareness and consciousness would be hard to make a case for. Those terms are themselves fuzzy, but I have not heard a compelling case that would make it obvious LLMs have those traits.
Picard addresses that when he asks for proof that he, himself is conscious.
It is a hard case to make, but if we can't make a compelling case for ourselves should we be requiring it to be made for others.
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are we even sure that self-awareness and consciousness are distinct? I do agree that from the PoV of "do LLMs demonstrate/exemplify consciousness", it is a difficult case without appealing to emotion (like is done in the clip, fwiw). for me, personally, that emotional appeal is sufficient, but that is because for whatever reason I'm willing to write puts on how this LLM stuff pans out and sell them to anyone, anywhere, anytime. But that is a reaction to consensus, not to my own certitude.
4 replies →
> Self-awareness and consciousness
I will make a case for both, after you define them in a way that doesn't also exclude many humans (including the neurodivergent or those with amnesia) or turn into self-referential nonsense like "conscious == human, therefore machine !== conscious."
In the meantime, we have a simple choice between two risks: Would you rather accidentally show kindness and empathy to a thing that may or may not have "deserved" it, or risk atrocities that will leave future generations as disgusted by you as we are of the slavers of old.
I will choose to be decent. It's free, and even if the cost were high the cost of evil is higher.
3 replies →
The problem with language models is their bias. Train a model on pure math and THEN when it starts talking by itself about consciousness (*), then we can say: that's odd.
(*) of course in its own language
Well we haven’t quite gotten there. But models trained purely on DNA sequences have demonstrated in-context learning on various simple reasoning tasks.
Because Data wasn't a next word predictor.
We aren't quite there yet on sentience with released models. Maybe in the labs but that's one of the criteria. We are very close though.
Sorry "very close"? Sometimes it feels like I'm the only one not drinking anything in the Kool aid drinking Oktoberfest I've been shoved into.
What are you basing this on? Why would LLMs exhibit sentience?
It does feel like people just like adding additional hype for the sake of being in on the hype. Fomo, pushed by oligarchs who would push their mother off a bridge for a trillion dollar IPO.
9 replies →
As an uninformed idiot my guess is we have more than enough compute in various labs to run a sentient model. But I doubt any models we’re currently running could qualify.
Kind of like how we could have ran Qwen 3.8 27B 20 years ago on an expensive computer. The technology to make it happen, assuming you knew exactly what was required, existed back then.
it gave me an ad for hair regrowth drugs..
guess youtube has a different measure :P