On: Ok, it’s time to freak out about AI

[323]

Cells don't _want_ anything either. Yet a funny thing happens when a large number of them add up.

We can go even further: atoms and electrons absolutely don't want anything either. Yet put them in the shape of a bunch of cells...

[ars → 323]

That's not actually true.

Cells want to process energy and make DNA. Atoms and electrons want to react with things.

And that's exactly what both of them do.

A LLM wants to write words, and it does. But it doesn't want the things it writes about, and that's the big distinction.

[pixl97 → ars]

What does the paperclip maximizer want?

[hanspeter → 323]

Exactly.

One might argue that we anthropomorphise ourselves.

[csomar → 323]

I disagree here. Both of them (or all of them) are interacting with energy. One can certainly say that human civilization and all of this complexity was built from sunshine. Human labor and intelligence is just an artifact. We believe its our own hard work and intelligence because we are full of ourselves.

[fortuna86 → 323]

Neither does a virus

[baal80spam → 323]

Never thought about it this way. Have my upvote!