[barrkel]

Where do you decide when multiplying and adding numbers becomes painful, and when it doesn't?

Is using calculators immoral? Chalk on a chalkboard?

Because if you work on those long enough, you can do the same calculations that make the words show up on screen.

[thomassmith65]

Oh no, to discuss this is to sound like a flake, but...

We don't know what consciousness is. But if we're materialists, then we - by definition - believe it's a property of matter.

If LLMs have a degree of consciousness, then - yes - calculators must possess some degree of consciousness too - probably much more basic (relative to what humans respect as consciousness).

And we humans already have ethical standards where we draw an arbitrary line between what is worthy of regard. We don't care about killing mosquitoes, but we do care about killing puppies, etc.

[barrkel]

Calculators may be conscious - I tend towards panpsychism myself - but because I tend towards panpsychism, I don't think arithmetic generates qualia, because the arithmetic is independent of the computing substrate.

I don't particularly want to get mystical (i.e. wondering which computing substrates, including neurons, actually generate qualia), but I cannot accept the consequences of mere arithmetic alone generating suffering. Or all mathematics is immoral.

[emp17344]

Hold on a minute - why do we have to be materialists? Maybe this whole debate is revealing that materialism is misguided.

[thomassmith65]

True, if the reader isn't materialist, then my arguments are probably irrelevant!

[Workaccount2]

Panpsychism is the philosophical field that studies what you are asking about. It's an old field that was first proposed in the 1500's.

[barrkel]

Oh I know, I know. The problem comes from imbuing text with qualia. A printer that prints out text that says its in pain isn't actually in pain.

If we buy panpsychism, the best we could aim for is destruction of the printer counts as pain, not the arrangement of ink on a page.

When it comes to LLMs, you're actually trying to argue something different, something more like dualism or idealism, because the computing substrate doesn't matter to the output.

But once you go there, you have to argue that doing arithmetic may cause pain.

Hence my post.