alt Hacker NewsIt's a waste of time to think about whether an LLM has a subjective experience of reality, and this handily sets aside issues like AI rights.
But the fact remains that these next-token-predictors exhibit objective, human-like behaviours, and for that reason the work of in-house philosopher Amanda Askell _is_ important. It's important that Claude is happy, empathic, demonstrates understanding and empathy for the human condition, because we are entrusting Claude to make decisions and take actions that have real world consequences, and we need Claude to behave in a productive and socially responsible manner. This simulacrum is becoming a superhuman, contributing member of society, and it will be anthropomorphic in its behaviour.
Additionally, I'm not fully convinced that consciousness isn't built out of words, and that next-token-prediction isn't functionally equivalent to the biological function identified by Chomsky's work in linguistics.
Replies
> Claude is happy, empathic, demonstrates understanding and empathy for the human condition
You're assuming that because Claude produces text that appears to express these qualities, Claude must have them. I don't think that's a good assumption.
Even many humans produce text that has the same appearance, but don't actually have those qualities--which becomes clear when you look at what they do, not what they say. So the assumption isn't even a valid one for humans. Talk is cheap.
On top of that, Claude doesn't even have the same kinds of connections to the outside world that humans do. All Claude has is text. So if you can't even trust humans to back up their words with actions, you should be much, much less trusting of Claude. Talk is a lot cheaper for Claude than it is for a human.
So if I don't think any words for a few seconds, am I not conscious?
Suppose I'm an advanced meditator and maintain that state for hours?