[simonw]

I'm fine with it. I love dogs, and I find suggestions that LLMs may achieve sentience or become conscious either laughable or abhorrent, depending on how serious the person is who's making them.

It's still OK to use dogs as an analogy. In this case the analogy is to unreliable tools, and dogs are unreliable tools.

I don't find "stochastic parrot" offensive as an analogy, even though it's got parrots in it.

[hollowturtle]

btw if you have emotional bonds with LLMs like you do with your dog "tools" there isn't much to argue over anymore

[simonw]

I don't think you're very good with analogies.

[azemetre]

It feels offensive because it's equating sentient life with being a tool used to mostly benefit capitalists. That feels extremely dystopian and somewhat antithetical of what it means to be a human, or at least I hope most humans don't feel their purpose in life is to become a good "widget" on an assembly line.

[simonw]

Do you find the "stochastic parrot" analogy offensive in the same way as the "unreliable tools, like dogs" analogy?

If not, why not?

Is it because the parrot analogy is directly critical of LLMs, while the dog one is more of an excuse for their failings?