Even quantum computing is just a shortcut for a subset of hideous obscure proofs. They aren’t doing different math. Special pleading is a fallacy… except when I do it, that’s different.
Emotions or not, it’s not good to have your product known for letting people torture something. Torturing /things/ alive or not is not something one should be doing unless there is specific and extreme cause.
Eh, the more I respond to people about this the more I realize torture is a messy word draped in metaphor and all sorts of layered usage. No, I don’t believe the rock has feelings or is alive, but you can indeed torture something that isn’t alive by being mentally unhealthy enough. So if it’s actual torture or not from a psychological perspective is going to center around if the person’s intent is to cause realized suffering imo, and the line is really easy to cross in a simulacrum as seemingly realistic as advanced modern generative models.
Yet you’re just arguing the metaphor is the definition provided the definition is the intent, are you not? Someone who intends to torture a rock, regardless of that intent, isn’t going to succeed in their task. Their own psychology might be such that they are genuinely trying to torture it but, from the rock’s perspective, the rock has no perspective. It’s a fucking rock. It can’t experience torture. It can’t experience anything. Ergo the torturer cannot torture it.
We can say the person who intends to literally torture something which is unexperiencing, achieving only metaphorical torture, is mentally unwell but to call the act literal torture because it was their intent is just sharing in their delusion.
My cat thinks I’ve betrayed her and all things good when i take her into the vet. I cause all sorts of terror in her. She even experiences pain that she can’t stop or understand.
Am I torturing her?
Or, am i doing my best to make sure she has a healthy and happy life?
Since you carried on with an example that isn’t analogous, I’d extend your first sentence to be “Intent matters when the intended results are remotely feasible.”
You can’t torture a rock. You could torture your cat. If she could speak she might say the events you describe are indeed torture from her perspective regardless of your own purity of intent. Still has fuckall to do with what I’ve said because you focused on an example where there is a mind capable of having an experience.
Let’s try this a couple other ways:
My pet rock has no sense of “betrayal” or “good” when I take it to the vet. It’s still a fucking rock. I mostly just cause all sorts of terror in the vet. My rock still doesn’t experience and the vet doesn’t understand.
Am I torturing my pet rock?
My LLM plays Word Association well enough to give an illusion of a sense of betrayal. I took it to the vet too and the vet is having me trespassed. I told her the LLM said “owie” but I was still removed from the premises.
Am I torturing the LLM or just my former veterinarian?
You shouldn’t torture anything, generally. It’s a not psychologically healthy urge to have. The specific reasoning will depend on the specific person. As for if you should do it to a hunk of metal, a rock, or your crusty cum sock is irrelevant.
in what way can an AI be tortured? start with defining torture, its relationship to living beings, and then try to translate that to a piece of software. software, fyi, has no a priori, or even posteriori, emotion; for it cannot have emotion.
Transistors switching really fast = emotions lul
Alright, look, I don’t think AI is sentient. I don’t think it’s capable of feeling emotions, LLMs are just prediction engines on steroids, etc…
But if you want to get reductive about it, Mr waveforms in a clump of cells,…
Please don’t write off the possibility of artificial consciousness, just because this isn’t it. Thought is a process which meat can perform.
The meat does the thinking.
Stopped what I was doing to watch this again.
I’ve thought more about the dangers of artificial consciousness than you would expect.
I mean, sure consciousness is (probably) a physical process, so like any other process we should be able to replicate it with some sort of machine.
…but I really really really doubt that machine is going to be a plain old Turing machine.
Every machine is a plain old Turing machine.
Even quantum computing is just a shortcut for a subset of hideous obscure proofs. They aren’t doing different math. Special pleading is a fallacy… except when I do it, that’s different.
I don’t quite think my lawnmower is boolean complete.
And while quantum computing may be expressible algorithmically (dunno, your claim, not mine), that doesn’t mean all of quantum physics is.
Then why continue if it’s possible? Unless you are ok with slavery.
Can you not imagine the difference between creating new life and enslaving it?
In a capitalist system? No, I can’t imagine that…
Neurons firing really synchronized = emotions lul
Emotions or not, it’s not good to have your product known for letting people torture something. Torturing /things/ alive or not is not something one should be doing unless there is specific and extreme cause.
It inherently isn’t torture though. I prefer punishing people who actually commit torture.
Eh, the more I respond to people about this the more I realize torture is a messy word draped in metaphor and all sorts of layered usage. No, I don’t believe the rock has feelings or is alive, but you can indeed torture something that isn’t alive by being mentally unhealthy enough. So if it’s actual torture or not from a psychological perspective is going to center around if the person’s intent is to cause realized suffering imo, and the line is really easy to cross in a simulacrum as seemingly realistic as advanced modern generative models.
Yet you’re just arguing the metaphor is the definition provided the definition is the intent, are you not? Someone who intends to torture a rock, regardless of that intent, isn’t going to succeed in their task. Their own psychology might be such that they are genuinely trying to torture it but, from the rock’s perspective, the rock has no perspective. It’s a fucking rock. It can’t experience torture. It can’t experience anything. Ergo the torturer cannot torture it.
We can say the person who intends to literally torture something which is unexperiencing, achieving only metaphorical torture, is mentally unwell but to call the act literal torture because it was their intent is just sharing in their delusion.
Intent matters.
My cat thinks I’ve betrayed her and all things good when i take her into the vet. I cause all sorts of terror in her. She even experiences pain that she can’t stop or understand.
Am I torturing her?
Or, am i doing my best to make sure she has a healthy and happy life?
Since you carried on with an example that isn’t analogous, I’d extend your first sentence to be “Intent matters when the intended results are remotely feasible.”
You can’t torture a rock. You could torture your cat. If she could speak she might say the events you describe are indeed torture from her perspective regardless of your own purity of intent. Still has fuckall to do with what I’ve said because you focused on an example where there is a mind capable of having an experience.
Let’s try this a couple other ways:
My pet rock has no sense of “betrayal” or “good” when I take it to the vet. It’s still a fucking rock. I mostly just cause all sorts of terror in the vet. My rock still doesn’t experience and the vet doesn’t understand.
Am I torturing my pet rock?
My LLM plays Word Association well enough to give an illusion of a sense of betrayal. I took it to the vet too and the vet is having me trespassed. I told her the LLM said “owie” but I was still removed from the premises.
Am I torturing the LLM or just my former veterinarian?
Why shouldn’t you torture an LLM? They sometimes work better that way.
You shouldn’t torture anything, generally. It’s a not psychologically healthy urge to have. The specific reasoning will depend on the specific person. As for if you should do it to a hunk of metal, a rock, or your crusty cum sock is irrelevant.
Wait til this guy learns about The Sims
Or worse, Rimworld
in what way can an AI be tortured? start with defining torture, its relationship to living beings, and then try to translate that to a piece of software. software, fyi, has no a priori, or even posteriori, emotion; for it cannot have emotion.
It’s a joke… lighten up, Francis