[jvanderbot]

I think about this from the other end. It cannot be considered a conscious being. There just isn't a world in which we should start to think of a machine using ethics we reserve for humans.

AI is essentially infinitely reproducible at zero cost, and won't suffer from decay etc. There's not scarcity to preserve.

So, I'd turn off an AI in a moment to save property or real possessions or money. I'd sacrifice property and money to save animals. I would never choose to save an animal over a person. I'd probably not choose to save a person over a child.

I don't see any inversion of any of those priorities that makes any sense.

It is interesting to think about what would cause me to consider these priorities incorrect, but a majority consensus about a program being sentient isn't it.

[Waterluvian]

What is the connection between scarcity and consciousness?

[Avicebron]

If we turn off people we can't usually just fire them back up again, and swapping the models between harnesses is also tricky.

[Waterluvian]

What if the human brain is a LOT of RAM and we simply suffer from having zero non-volatile storage. We could make an AI just as deficient and then that specific distinction disappears.

[andrei_says_]

What if it’s not a lot of RAM?

What if genetic memory, multigenerational conditioning, life-long patterning and conditioning, experienced in a body, combined with forces and processes not yet detected nor explained, cannot quite fit in a sliver of modeling?

[jvanderbot]

A loose one. In nature consciousness is very scarce and therefore special. The more human the consciousness the more we probably naturally react to it. And the closer to us it is, even more so.

[Taek]

Are we sure that consciousness is "very scarce"? To define it as scarce, wouldn't we need to start with a definition? There are theories of consciousness that say rocks are more conscious than humans. Whether or not you want to take those theories seriously, they do highlight critical gaps in how we define consciousness.

[jvanderbot]

Then you're probably reinforcing my original point - we can't care so much or we'll enter some pretty alarming priority inversions.

[bondarchuk]

You are arguing from consequences, it's not a valid argument. "If we consider AIs to be conscious it would be a alarming, therefore they are not conscious".

[jvanderbot]

You made that up. My full argument is above. I'll try again.

"We must not consider consciousness as all too important because what matters is human flourishing and human rights."

And some of

"Even if we suddenly all agree an LLM is conscious it wouldn't and shouldn't influence us very much"

While acknowledging that some people will change their lives, the way some people like myself won't eat octopus or apes because it is probably more like murdering a sentient creature.

And oh by the way you cannot murder a copyable individual anyway. Did you read Enders Game?

[Sankozi]

Zero cost? How did you reached that estimate?

Training AI is often more costly than supporting human from birth till death. Just sustaining frontier LLM model on necessary hardware costs more than living in first world countries.

[JoshTriplett]

> AI is essentially infinitely reproducible at zero cost, and won't suffer from decay etc.

I hope the same becomes true of people, and that doesn't mean people stop being sapient.

[hn_acc1]

Infinitely reproducible at 0 cost means people will be treated as disposable by the rich.

[aussieguy1234]

If it's truly zero cost, the poor will be doing the same

[chairhairair]

Consider that it is very costly to train a model. It is only cheap to copy because the substrate we instantiate it onto is a substrate we have designed to be fully readable.

I think you should reconsider this viewpoint. Suppose that we really can create silicon-based consciousness, in that case your view would result in a huge amount of suffering.

Take some other basis for dismissing digital consciousness, this one is too dangerous.

[jvanderbot]

How much data center energy and capex justifies killing a human to save?

I argue zero - placing AI below the value of humans no matter the energy input.

The _only_ reason an AI might be worth saving is if it, say, has a cure for all diseases, but then we're not saving it due to its intrinsic worth, we're saving it because we can save many humans. I _would_ consider the trolly problem a legitimate thing in ethics, but not if an AI were tied up on the tracks no matter how expensive it is. It's a thing. It gets run over to save any human.

[nozzlegear]

Roko's basilisk can suck a fart out of my butt, but no battery blood would ever be worth the life of a single human.

[joquarky]

Suffering comes from desire.

What would a silicon-based consciousness desire to cause suffering?

[lupire]

Are you a vegan?

If not, then your comment's claim is false.

Anyway, the deeper solution is to acknowledge that all life is sacred, and infinities cannot be compared, and some decisions are impossible to make, and some tragedies cannot be averted, and "prioritization" is a distraction that forces choices when choices are not strictly necessary.

[nkrisc]

We can choose to draw the lines wherever we want. I firmly draw the line such that AI is never equal to a human.

[solenoid0937]

Just because you can draw a line doesn't mean your line makes any sense, or follows any semblance of rationality.

[nkrisc]

That’s the cool thing, the lines we, as a society, choose to draw need not follow any logical or rational system. This is something those who work a lot with computers tend to forget.

The pure rationalist loses something important.

[computably]

Presumably they meant that they'd sacrifice some material value for some animals, not that every animal on Earth has infinitely more value than inanimate goods.

> infinities cannot be compared

That's either a mathematically illiterate assumption or a very strange philosophical hill to die on.

> some tragedies cannot be averted

Sure. The question is what to do about the ones that can be averted.

> some decisions are impossible to make

> and "prioritization" is a distraction that forces choices when choices are not strictly necessary.

Again, the question is what choices to make when you can (arguably must) make them. Saying they're impossible is just refusing to take responsibility. You either do something, or you don't.

[jvanderbot]

I'm not. You're right. Some animals are property to be traded and used to support human life. I should separate companion animals and the rest.

If you believe sanctity of all life is a solution, then I'm curious what you believe the problem is that such a belief solves.

I bet it's circularly defined as justifying the preservation of sacred nonhuman life? I'm not trying to be provocative just curious.