XMPPwocky on In case you think there is consciousness, intelligence or personality in an LLM [video]

Comment on In case you think there is consciousness, intelligence or personality in an LLM [video]parent

Could you explain how this is related to "consciousness", "intelligence", or "personality"?

It's not, that's the point. It's all just math. You should watch the video.

I think you'd benefit from explaining why something being "just math" means it can't be intelligent, conscious, or have a personality- it seems like you're sort of assuming that implicitly, could you make an argument for it?

Rotundo 1mo

This is, trivially, not intelligent nor conscious:

  function add(x): return x + 1; end.

An LLM has a bit of randomness to its calculations but that does not change the fact that

  function add_random(x): return x + rand(1, 10); end

is also just math. No personality. There's nobody home. After the function ends there is no residue.

An LLM does a lot of calculations but that doesn't change how it works.

XMPPwocky 1mo

Is a single subatomic particle conscious? Unless you're a panpsychist then surely no, right?

And yet humans, made of such particles, are!

So it seems like reductionism doesn't work here.

spottedmarleyOP1mo

Surely no? So you are sure that sub-atomic particles are not conscious but math could be conscious. Interesting

XMPPwocky 1mo

tbc, I'm pretty sure that both an individual subatomic particle and a NAND gate or an adder are not conscious. (At least when I'm not in panpsychist moods!)

But, in the same way that one particle not being conscious doesn't necessarily mean some configurations of many particles- like humans- aren't, one logic gate not being conscious doesn't mean there can't exist configurations of many logic gates that are.

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