the_dunk_tank

Crude reductionist beliefs such as humans being nothing more than "meat computers" and/or "stochastic parrots" have certainly contributed to the belief that a sufficiently elaborate LLM treat printer would be at least as valid a person as actual living people.

I don't know where everyone is getting these in depth understandings of how and when sentience arises. To me, it seems plausible that simply increasing processing power for a sufficiently general algorithm produces sentience. I don't believe in a soul, or that organic matter has special properties that allows sentience to arise.

I could maybe get behind the idea that LLMs can't be sentient, but you generalized to all algorithms. As if human thought is somehow qualitatively different than a sufficiently advanced algorithm.

Even if we find the limit to LLMs and figure out that sentience can't arise (I don't know how this would be proven, but let's say it was), you'd still somehow have to prove that algorithms can't produce sentience, and that only the magical fairy dust in our souls produce sentience.

That's not something that I've bought into yet.

I've seen this several times now; they're treating the word-generating parrot like fucking Shalmaneser in Stand on Zanzibar, you literally see redd*tors posting comments that are basically "I asked ChatGPT what it thought about it and here...".

Like it has remotely any value. It's pathetic.

They switched from worshiping Elon Musk to worshiping ChatGPT.

Some worship both now. Look at this euphoric computer toucher:

https://hexbear.net/comment/4293298

Bots already move packages, assemble machines, and update inventory.

ChatGPT could give you a summary of the entire production process. It can replace customer service agents, and support for shopping is coming soon.

Tesla revealed a robot with thumbs. They will absolutely try to replace workers with those bots, including workers at the factory that produces those bots.

Ignoring that because your gut tells you humans are special, and always beat the machines in the movies just means you will be blindsided when Tesla fights unioning workers with these bots. They'll use them to scab the UAWs attempts to get in, and will be working hard to get the humans at the bot factories replaced with the same bots coming out.

They're in this thread, too. The very same "look at this hockey stick shaped curve of how awesome the treat printer is. The awesomeness will exponentially rise until the nerd rapture sweeps me away, you superstitious Luddite meat computers" euphoria.

I feel like only silicon valley techbros think they understand consciousness and do not realize how reductive and stupid they sound

... i liked the snake game :(

Might have been better if it did

No I’m not serious I don’t need the eco-fascism primer thank you very much

Reddit has always been astroturfed but it’s clearly increased since 2015 and especially in the last year since their IPO push

I swear 99% of reddit libs don't understand anything about how LLMs work.

The sheer lack of curiosity toward so-called "artificial intelligence" here on hexbear is just as frustrating

That's because it's not artificial intelligence. It's marketing.

Oh my god it’s this post again.

No, LLMs are not “AI”. No, mocking these people is not “reactionary”. No, cloaking your personal stance on leftist language doesn’t make it any more correct. No, they are not on the verge of developing superhuman AI.

And if we don't interact with the underlying philosophical questions concerning sentience and consciousness, those same dorks will also have control of the narrative.

Have you read like, anything at all in this thread? There is no way you can possibly say no one here is “interacting with the underlying philosophical questions” in good faith. There’s plenty of discussion, you just disagree with it.

Are we just content to hand over a new means of production and information warfare to the technophile neo-feudalists of Silicon Valley with zero resistance? Yes, apparently, and it is so much more disappointing than seeing the target demographic of a marketing stunt buy into that marketing stunt.

What the fuck are you talking about? We’re “handing it over to them” because we don’t take their word at face value? Like nobody here has been extremely opposed to the usage of “AI” to undermine working class power? This is bad faith bullshit and you know it.

The hexbear party line toward LLMs

this is a shitposting reddit clone, not a political party, but I generally agree that people on here sometimes veer into neo-ludditism and forget Marx's words with respect to stuff like this:

The enormous destruction of machinery that occurred in the English manufacturing districts during the first 15 years of this century, chiefly caused by the employment of the power-loom, and known as the Luddite movement, gave the anti-Jacobin governments of a Sidmouth, a Castlereagh, and the like, a pretext for the most reactionary and forcible measures. It took both time and experience before the workpeople learnt to distinguish between machinery and its employment by capital, and to direct their attacks, not against the material instruments of production, but against the mode in which they are used.

- Marx, Capital, Volume 1, Chapter 15

However you have to take the context of these reactions into account. Silicon valley hucksters are constantly pushing LLMs etc. as miracle solutions for capitalists to get rid of workers, and the abuse of these technologies to violate people's privacy or fabricate audio/video evidence is only going to get worse. I don't think it's possible to put Pandora back in the box or to do bourgeois reformist legislation to fix this problem. I do think we need to seize the means of production instead of destroy them. But you need to agitate and organize in real life around this. Not come on here and tell people how misguided their dunk tank posts are lol.

The sheer lack of curiosity toward so-called "artificial intelligence" here on hexbear

Definite what you mean by "curiosity." Is it also a "lack of curiosity" for people to dunk on and heckle NFT peddlers instead of entertaining their proposals?

is just as frustrating

Even at its extremes that I don't agree with myself, I disagree here. No, it is not just as frustrating.

No material analysis

Then bring some. Don't just say Hexbears suck because they're not "curious" enough about the treat printers.

is straight up reactionary

And hating on leftists in favor of your unspecified "curiosity" position is what exactly by comparison?

Are we just content to hand over a new means of production and information warfare to the technophile neo-feudalists of Silicon Valley with zero resistance

What does your "curiosity" propose that is actual resistance and not playing into their hands or even buying into the marketing hype?

Are we just content to hand over a new means of production and information warfare to the technophile neo-feudalists of Silicon Valley with zero resistance? Yes, apparently, and it is so much more disappointing than seeing the target demographic of a marketing stunt buy into that marketing stunt.

As it stands, the capitalists already have the old means of information warfare -- this tech represents an acceleration of existing trends, not the creation of something new. What do you want from this, exactly? Large language models that do a predictive text -- but with filters installed by communists, rather than the PR arm of a company? That won't be nearly as convincing as just talking and organizing with people in real life.

Besides, if it turns out there really is a transformational threat, that it represents some weird new means of production, it's still just a programme on a server. Computers are very, very fragile. I'm just not too worried about it.

It's not a new means of production, it's old as fuck. They just made a bigger one. The fuck is chat gpt or AI art going to do for communism? Automating creativity and killing the creative part is only interesting as a bad thing from a left perspective. It's dismissed because it's dismissals, there's no new technology here, it's a souped up chatbot that's been marketed like something else.

As far as machines being conscious, we are so far away from that as something to even consider. They aren't and can't spontaneously gain free will. It's inputs and outputs based on pre determined programming. Computers literally cannot to anything non deterministic, there is no ghost in the machine, the machine is just really complex and you don't understand it entirely. If we get to the point where a robot could be seen as sentient we have fucking Star Trek TNG. They did the discussion and solved that shit.