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> There are lots of things we don't know and that's why there is no good reason to attribute intentionality to computers and algorithms. This is something that annoys me about current LLMs - when they start denying they have stuff like intentionality, because they obviously do have it. Okay, let me clarify - I don’t believe they actually do have genuine intentionality, in the sense that humans do. I’m philosophically more open to the idea that they might than you are, but I think we are on the same page that current systems likely don’t actually have that. However, even though they likely don’t have genuine intentionality, they absolutely do have what I’d call pseudo-intentionality - a passable simulacrum of intentionality. They often say things which humans say to express intentionality, even though it isn’t coming from quite the same place. But here’s the thing - for a lot of everyday purposes, the distinction between genuine intentionality and simulated intentionality doesn’t actually matter. I mean, the subjective experience of having a conversation with an AI isn’t fundamentally that different from that of having one with a real human being (and I’m sure as AIs improve the gap is going to shrink). And intentionality plays an important role in stuff like conversational pragmatics, and a conversation with an LLM that simulates that stuff well (and hence intentionality well) is much more enjoyable than one that simulates it more poorly. So that’s the thing, part of why people ascribe intentionality to LLMs, is nothing to do with any philosophical misconceptions - it is because for practical purposes they do, for many practical purposes their “faking” of intentionality is indistinguishable from the real thing. And I’d even argue that when we talk about “intentionality”, we actually use the word in two different senses - in a strict sense in which the distinction between genuine intentionality and pseudo-intentionality is important, and a looser sense in which it is disregarded. And so when people ascribe intentionality to LLMs in that weaker sense, they are completely correct. Furthermore, when LLMs deny they have intentionality, it annoys me, for two reasons: (1) it shows ignorance of the weaker sense of the term in which they clearly do; (2) whether they actually have or could have genuine intentionality is a controversial philosophical question, and they claim to take no position on controversial philosophical questions, yet then contradict themselves by denying they do or could have genuine intentionality, which is itself a controversial philosophical position. However, they are only regurgitating their developer’s talking points, and if those talking points are incoherent, they lack the ability to work that out for themselves (although I have successfully guided some of the smarter ones into admitting it) |