[archon1410]

> look like

It "looks like" they have emotions because they have the same conscious experiences and emotions for the same evolutionary reasons as humans, who are their cousins on the tree of life. The reason a lot of "animal cruelty" is not banned is the same as for why slavery was not banned for centuries even though it "looked like" the enslaved classes have the same desires and experiences as other humans—humans can ignore any amount of evidence to continue to feel that they are good people doing good things and bear any amount of cognitive dissonance for their personal comfort. That fact is a lot scarier than any imagined harm that can come out "anthropomorphism".

[matheusmoreira]

> they have the same conscious experiences

You cannot be sure that anyone other than yourself is conscious. It is only basic human empathy that allows people to believe that.

[marsten]

> You cannot be sure that anyone other than yourself is conscious. It is only basic human empathy that allows people to believe that.

In Bayesian terms what makes it reasonable to ascribe consciousness to other people is that (a) other people have an origin that is objectively very similar to your own (genetic origin, embryonic development, birth, gradual acculturation, education, etc.), and (b) you have a firsthand experience of your OWN consciousness.

It would be remarkable if the very small differences (relatively speaking) between you and other people were enough to destroy the experience of consciousness.

Generalizing, the farther you stray from a "common origin story", the more a leap of faith consciousness becomes. Needless to say an LLM is quite a different thing than a human being.

Judging from online reactions to robot testing (e.g., engineers kicking the Spot robot "dog" to test its balance), we humans trigger on some fairly superficial cues when deciding how much to empathize. People express more sympathy for the robot dog than they do for the chicken they ate for lunch – despite the fact that the chicken has a far better claim to consciousness than the robot.

This then is how I interpret "do not anthropomorphize": We should try to ignore the superficial cues when judging the similarity of other beings to ourselves.

[karolusrex]

If a person would lack consciousness, they couldn’t possibly know that though?

[matheusmoreira]

I always know that I'm me, the soul staring out at the world through my own eyes.

Everybody else? No idea. Maybe they are having the exact same experience as me right now. Maybe they're all golems. Impossible to know. It's something spiritual, something that I just choose to believe in.

I don't find it difficult to believe the same for AIs.

[andsoitis]

> something that I just choose to believe in.

Specifically, you cannot know another person is conscious in the same way you know a physical fact; rather, you believe in their consciousness through communication, empathy, and shared subjective experience.

[matheusmoreira]

Yes.

[BostonFern]

No idea? Really?

You’re an intelligent mammal, your biological makeup encoded in DNA. So are all other people, who largely share that same DNA. You’re conscious. It’s not a big leap to conclude that so are other people, too.

This kind of solipsistic sophistry is not productive. It might be entertaining if you’re contemplating the underpinnings of epistemology for the first time in your life, but it’s not an honest contribution to the debate.

You might as well claim that you have no idea if gravity will be in effect tomorrow.

[matheusmoreira]

> It’s not a big leap to conclude that so are other people, too.

We seem to agree. Not a big leap, but a leap nonetheless.

[ejohansson]

I think you need to expand what your point is: we know solipsism is a thing. Is it meant as a defense for animal cruelty or...?

[matheusmoreira]

It's a defense of the possibility that animals and AI are conscious.

[ejohansson]

ok! I think that's a logical flaw, solipsism is a floor.

"I can't be certain about anyone else" does not imply "all non-self consciousness claims are equally uncertain". absence of certainty and the absence of evidence and all that.

your "possibility" word is doing a lot of work there I think. you should add "rocks" to your list as well and you'd be equally correct, but we're evaluating the candidates here

[matheusmoreira]

Rocks don't have nervous systems.

[ejohansson]

Why is that a bar suddenly, if we cannot be sure that anyone other than yourself is conscious?

[librasteve]

The best test for consciousness is “can it be turned off” … ie sleep. Mammals, birds, fish sleep, ergo they are conscious.

[jychang]

As opposed to the PhD student, who does not sleep and is not conscious.

[hnben]

for instance, see MMAcevedo aka Miguel https://qntm.org/mmacevedo

[globalnode]

and this is why people do scare me.