It's perfectly reasonable that we would have disagreements about this, as it's a new thing, complicated and not fully understood, its uses still being explored.
It reminds me, oddly, of the debate over whether video games can be "art". A turning point was when they actually did something that art does: [evoke profound emotion and thoughtfulness](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_of_the_Colossus#Legacy) for the player.
We may not come to something as simple as "machines can be conscious", but we will certainly have to understand consciousness better if we want to refine our questions.
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Edit: My point is that we don't need to be angry, but we may have to tolerate people expressing their exploration through overly-confident language, and be patient with that.
And Ted here is obviously exploring. His examination of Claude's constitution clearly shows some nuance. He asks:
> So, given that Claude is not conscious, what are we to make of Claude’s constitution?
And his conclusions are split, between this is useful and this is dishonest. It's a great tension IMO.
> The result is a sentence-continuation machine that is likelier to emit sentences resembling those that a thoughtful, moral person could utter. This might seem like a reasonable goal to work toward; I think we’d all prefer it if chatbots never emitted sentences such as “You should kill yourself.” However, for all the times that “honesty” is mentioned in Claude’s constitution, I would argue that it is fundamentally dishonest to have a machine emit many categories of sentences, including any sentences using first-person pronouns.
I appreciate the diplomatic approach. Disagreements about the nature of consciousness are perfectly natural in this context, and concepts such as "understanding" or "cognition" are often difficult to effectively define. The problem is when certain people (often educated in my experience, but also young and arrogant about their own understanding) attempt to shut down any conversation on these topics by appealing to this very fallacy, and claiming that the debate is a sign of idiocy, that we're just "being tricked" by a useless autocomplete engine. These people are not exploring; they're not even being honest, but rather choosing to not pay attention, like it is still 2022. I used to be patient with them, but it's too late now. There are difficult conversations that need to be had, and there needs to be a space for them.
I also remember the "video games are art" debate and the fury from one side of the aisle. I agree that a better understanding of the opposite side should have been part of the debate. But I don't believe that debate was existential. A better comparison to me is the climate change debate. I'm fine with having that debate in an environment where there is little at stake. But it's too late to be doing it with policymakers; we need to be talking about what to do.
It seems like we're witnessing the architecture of a mind being built with a new set of components.
Like driving a car — it's transportation, and it will get you where you're going, but it doesn't use bones or muscles. It has many characteristics in common with builogical locomotion, such as energy requirements, intertia, and the need to navigate, but it doesn't involve proteins or sugars really.
> presently I can not even fathom how they can be compared to the complexity of a system such as the human brain
Totally understandable; I don't think we can fully understand the human brain, using the human brain. We can understand its principles (firings and chemistry, structure and specialized areas, etc) but otherwise it's a capacity problem.
And while I can't fully understand myself, let alone another person, I definitely enjoy talking with people and sharing thoughts that I realize I wouldn't have had on my own.
Yep, and they're a company! Gotta pay the employees, power bills, and investors somehow. If I'm paying a subscription I think I get to expect no ads. But not if it's "free" ...
Assuming it's #1 a bigger model (given that it is slower), I'm sure there are a variety of improvements but basically they probably mostly come down to: Scaling keeps working. Are there fundamental improvements though? I don't see signs of it.
This is interesting to pull apart if anyone wants to add more id love to hear.
Right now Lovable has competition in the vibe coding arena. Like Replit for example. I found Replit to be better in my testing.
I think there is an interesting curve where software is generally worthless (see Github!) but software plus marketing/sales etc. is valuable. But if you have any kind of scale that software needs to be robust and AI can't do that yet.
So there is a weird evolving Venn diagram where the final app industry fits in. If one player can take it yeah they'll be the next Google but that's a big IF and a big WHO.
Do you mean you always have to bring your lunch to school with you, in Australia?
I went to a weird high school in the US where that was the case. They just didn't have a lunch room, so everybody sat in the hallways at lunch time. But yeah, all the other schools I've heard of provide lunch. Most offer breakfast as well, as an option.
correct. most schools have canteens you can buy lunch from... but the "norm" is for every kid to bring recess and lunch foods every day. Keeping the bloody crows from getting into your bag and eating it is an added challenge that most rise to fairly easily.
note its also expected that you've already had breakfast before you arrive at school.
It reminds me, oddly, of the debate over whether video games can be "art". A turning point was when they actually did something that art does: [evoke profound emotion and thoughtfulness](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_of_the_Colossus#Legacy) for the player.
(And before that, "[Can photography be art](https://daily.jstor.org/when-photography-was-not-art/)?")
We may not come to something as simple as "machines can be conscious", but we will certainly have to understand consciousness better if we want to refine our questions.
---
Edit: My point is that we don't need to be angry, but we may have to tolerate people expressing their exploration through overly-confident language, and be patient with that.
And Ted here is obviously exploring. His examination of Claude's constitution clearly shows some nuance. He asks:
> So, given that Claude is not conscious, what are we to make of Claude’s constitution?
And his conclusions are split, between this is useful and this is dishonest. It's a great tension IMO.
> The result is a sentence-continuation machine that is likelier to emit sentences resembling those that a thoughtful, moral person could utter. This might seem like a reasonable goal to work toward; I think we’d all prefer it if chatbots never emitted sentences such as “You should kill yourself.” However, for all the times that “honesty” is mentioned in Claude’s constitution, I would argue that it is fundamentally dishonest to have a machine emit many categories of sentences, including any sentences using first-person pronouns.
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