[maxbond]

You can't do the same with a toaster. Physically you could write that story. But it would fall flat because the toaster is not a compelling subject in a discussion of consciousness. You don't have to believe that LLMs or AI agents are conscious to acknowledge that the argument for their consciousness is far more compelling than any other technological artifact.

[Planktonne]

You could absolutely write a compelling story about a sentient toaster; it's been done before [1].

That is entirely separate to whether or not it would be a meaningful way to understand the world; a convincing story is not the same thing as one that is true.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brave_Little_Toaster

[dghf]

> a compelling story about a sentient toaster

"Howdy-doodly-doo! Anybody like any toast?"

https://youtu.be/LRq_SAuQDec?si=YbQfnZbrCe01Bicy

[janez2]

your link has a si= tracking parameter

[dghf]

Apologies, didn't notice when I got the link from YT's "Share" button. Won't make that mistake again.

Comment is now to old to edit: for convenience, here's the link without the parameter -- https://youtu.be/LRq_SAuQDec

[maxbond]

I never said you couldn't write any arbitrary compelling story about a toaster, I said that this specific hypothetical story, where you rewrite "They're made of meat!" to be about a toaster, would not be compelling.

I am doing my best to communicate with you but to be honest you are not hearing me (across both responses), and I am out of words.

[iainmerrick]

Just wanted to say, I appreciate your patience and good sense in this thread.

It's difficult to tell who's trolling -- probably best to go with the charitable assumption that everyone is honestly trying to convey their opinion, but mostly talking past each other. Unfortunately these discussions about the nature of consciousness never go anywhere useful.

I think I'm probably in the same boat as you, roughly: a) LLMs are doing something really interesting that resembles in many ways both intelligence and consciousness; b) I suspect they're not actually conscious but I don't know how you'd know for sure; c) it all just drives home that we still don't really know what consciousness actually is. But like (a), it's definitely something really interesting...

[maxbond]

I don't think I was quite as patient as I should have been, but I do appreciate it.

[econ]

I read some stuff once where the author argued that almost everything takes in values, performs operation on them and gives output. Some things also store things. Then, if everything is doing logic operations there is no telling where intelligent "life" might be hiding. It also is really one giant system.

The toaster has hard coded or configurable weights. It makes a product from heat and time.

You could make toast by heating a brick on a campfire. It would be a clear sign of intelligence.

If we lift one weight out of your brain we wouldn't look at the number and say it is intelligence. It must exist in a chain or matrix multiplication to qualify.

The fun thing is that the timer and feedback mechanism do exist in a chain of events.

It's part of the system and it takes all steps to complete the task.

Our chain of thought that leads to making toast would be abandoned if it wasn't in working order.

[Planktonne]

It would be equally compelling, because the compelling nature of the story comes from the language, the presentation, rather than the [specific thing being ascribed consciousness].

[iainmerrick]

No, the original "they're made out of meat" works because we're confident that we are in fact intelligent and conscious, despite how ridiculous and unlikely the author manages to make it sound.

"They're made out of weights" works precisely because LLMs really do have this mysterious property that they seem somehow intelligent even though nobody can explain exactly why, and there's active debate over whether they could be considered conscious.

The thing being discussed isn't simply an arbitrary MacGuffin; in both cases the nature of the thing is central to the impact of the story.

[Planktonne]

I disagree; it works in the original because it's the unlikely consciousness that produces the text itself; in the LLM case, it's produced by the likely consciousness.

"Imagine how other intelligences would view us", written by us, hits a lot less hard when it's "imagine how our intelligences view a thing we are claiming is intelligent", not written by it.

[wredcoll]

> Imagine how other intelligences would view us", written by us, hits a lot less hard when it's "imagine how our intelligences view a thing we are claiming is intelligent", not written by it

This is well put. We don't need to imagine how a human views a llm because we can ... just do that. Everyone capable of reading the story is also capable of thinking about how they feel abouy llms that exist right now and you've probably used.

The trick of the original story is inverting your perspective, moving your view point fron yourself to an "other" (which I think is a primary qualifier for most good fiction).

[erg0s4m]

The article ends with this disclaimer "Weights helped me draft and proof this story.". So it is at least partially written by LLM.

[darkwater]

But that toaster would just be a device to talk about consciousness in general. In this case it does that and also it talks specifically of the LLM case, which can spark the discussion. Unless you believe to have the only valid and true opinion on the matter, and affirm that a normal toaster is just the same as an LLM in this topic.

[shaky-carrousel]

An LLM is as conscious as a toaster...

[chadgpt3]

There is no evidence for this statement

[shaky-carrousel]

There is also no evidence that I'm not a sentient toaster.

[dleeftink]

Well..

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsukumogami

[argee]

You might like: https://vimeo.com/361976348?fl=pl&fe=vl

[keybored]

It’s reductio ad absurdum. No one cares about teapots in space either (Russel).

[maxbond]

I agree that is the mode of argument; reductio ad absurdum is a brittle argument, because it only works if the analogy holds. I argued the analogy doesn't hold.

[keybored]

> But it would fall flat because the toaster is not a compelling subject in a discussion of consciousness.

Teapots are not compelling.

> You don't have to believe that LLMs or AI agents are conscious to acknowledge that the argument for their consciousness is far more compelling than any other technological artifact.

God is compelling t billions of people.

Is Russel’s Teapot a bad argument in the God debate?

[maxbond]

> Is Russel’s Teapot a bad argument in the God debate?

What's the relevance? If the argument made here are was a good argument, it wouldn't matter if Russell's argument was bad. We could construct a bad argument using reductio ad absurdum right here and now and it wouldn't matter to either argument.

Can you be straight with me? You know the salient difference between asserting the consciousness of a toaster and the consciousness of an AI, right? It isn't a mystery to you why we would find one line of inquiry interesting and the other not so much?

For instance, it's probably a real possibility in your mind that I am not a human and am an AI. But you probably aren't entertaining the hypothesis that I'm a toaster.

[keybored]

> What's the relevance?

It directly parallels your argument.

> Can you be straight with me? You know the salient difference between asserting the consciousness of a toaster and the consciousness of an AI, right? It isn't a mystery to you why we would find one line of inquiry interesting and the other not so much?

There are two aspects here.

1. That people find the question interesting

2. That it has any bearing on reality (ontology?)

The first aspect is anthropology. Russel’s Teapot is not supposed to undercut any anthropological arguments. It’s supposed to undercut the second aspect.

So far you have said that the argument is compelling. What’s that got to do with reality? A robot cow could be sexually arousing to a real bull.

> For instance, it's probably a real possibility in your mind that I am not a human and am an AI. But you probably aren't entertaining the hypothesis that I'm a toaster.

Yeah. AIs know how to use computers. What’s this got to do with consciousness? Whether or not you are an AI is practical and disprovable. Consciousness is so ephemeral (for lack of a better word, not literally) that Philosophical Zombies is a real argument/thought experiment.

You may think I’m being coy (“Can you be straight with me”) but that’s not my intent at all.

[maxbond]

> It directly parallels your argument.

Much like Russel argued that the burden of proof of God's existence is on theists, the burden to establish this parallel is on you as the person forwarding the argument. I don't see any relevant connection. Russel isn't arguing that a teapot is as real as God in the same way it's disputed here that a toaster is as conscious as an LLM.

> So far you have said that the argument is compelling. What’s that got to do with reality? A robot cow could be sexually arousing to a real bull.

AI is a real phenomenon that we can study and measure. There is no experiment that anyone has devised can determine whether or not they are conscious, so that is the reality - uncertainty. That doesn't mean they're conscious. It means that the belief they are not conscious is assumption.

You might say the same of a toaster, but these hypothesis are not equally strong. The toaster doesn't exhibit any behaviors to suggest that it's conscious. Consciousness isn't a hypothesis with any explanatory power for the observed behaviors of a toaster. It's not a hypothesis that's on the table. That's why the analogy doesn't work.

To put a fine point on it, it appears on it's face that AIs could be conscious. They can put on a very convincing performance of being a person. A sufficiently convincing performance is indistinguishable from the real thing. So at face value, the burden of proof is on them not being conscious. Reductionist arguments that present the mechanics of how they work and leap to their not being conscious don't work, because there is no law saying a statistical model can't be conscious. That's an assumption, not knowledge.

[erikerikson]

Only because you haven't met toasty yet.

https://youtu.be/LRq_SAuQDec?si=LFJMXZ2yGu4fxXzL

[janez2]

your link has a si= tracking parameter

[erikerikson]

Sorry, you're right. Thank you for pointing that. I'm unfortunately past the edit window.