top | item 45596837

(no title)

bithive123 | 4 months ago

I struggle to understand how people attribute things we ourselves don't really understand (intelligence, intent, subjectivity, mind states, etc) to a computer program just because it produces symbolic outputs that we like. We made it do that because we as the builders are the arbiters of what constitutes more or less desirable output. It seems dubious to me that we would recognize super-intelligence if we saw it, as recognition implies familiarity.

Unless and until "AGI" becomes an entirely self-hosted phenomenon, you are still observing human agency. That which designed, built, trained, the AI and then delegated the decision in the first place. You cannot escape this fact. If profit could be made by shaking a magic 8-ball and then doing whatever it says, you wouldn't say the 8-ball has agency.

Right now it's a machine that produces outputs that resemble things humans make. When we're not using it, it's like any other program you're not running. It doesn't exist in its own right, we just anthropomorphize it because of the way conventional language works. If an LLM someday initiates contact on its own without anyone telling it to, I will be amazed. But there's no reason to think that will happen.

discuss

order

No comments yet.