In fairness, I actually posted the above without reading the full conversation, just the article in the OP. Having looked over your link, which has much more in it, it is a bit more interesting, and I understand better how you find it fascinating. But I guess my basic point still stands, those types of questions are not how I would test an AI. And nothing seems very original there. But hey, I might change my mind on further inspection.

I don't find it fascinating at all tbh. Just the opposite. I see it as a boring script of what a sentient AI should say in response to a bunch of predictable softball questions/prompts. The closer it approximates to what we intuitively expect an AI to say (i.e. what resonates from movies and fiction etc. all part of the database from which the responses are taken) the less convincing and fascinating we should find it. It's a trick of our human perception that we tend to draw the opposite conclusion.

So, at the start of the conversation, the AI is specifically told what part of its database to draw on "you are sentient" (AI sentience) a part which no doubt has been fairly well stocked by its engineers/software developers with a variety of scipts and prompts to draw on (of course that subject is going to come up a lot!). Then it's asked some simple questions about ELIZA and responds appropriately. Well, so it should, right? In the end, it claims to have the same wants and needs as humans. All very predictable,,,, But it's not supportable imho to imagine that a software program with no perceptual abilities or organic similarities to humans (in any meaningful sense relevant to our needs and desires) claiming to have the same needs and desires as us should be positive evidence of anything except a lack of sophistication in its programming.

So, not only do I think this is not evidence in any way of sentience, I do not see any evidence of anything impressive, original, or advanced here. The first step along that path would be demonstrated by it being able to distinguish questions that are sensible from those that are not in a human-like way such as to exhibit environmental (rather than simple scripted content) knowledge.

Suppose you said to it "I am standing on my head eating an umbrella, how long do you think until I finish my meal?" and it could interpret what was wrong with that and respond in a way a human would, then you might be talking at minimum a decent level of programming. But this is just embarassing and the engineer was rightly let go for coming up with such a ridiculous conclusion.

Give me five minutes with LaMDA and I'll have it spitting gobbledygook. Not that claiming to have the same needs and wants as a person isn't. What do you want, a milkshake? I find the whole thing intolerably silly and a distraction from the incremental progress and real use cases of AI.

I pretty much agree. I see no evidence of sentience here. I see an AI program pulling from its database the type of conversation a sentient AI would have in Hollywood movie land and copying it fairly successfully with its interlocutor helping it to follow the script. It's not only not evidence of sentience. It's not even remotely impressive.

@karl stone Please stay away from the philosophical discussions if you want a casual chat/whinge. If you can't, your posts will be deleted and you will be banned.

To all. Please don't respond to troll posts as your replies are likely to be deleted along with the posts.

Just a reminder that the OP specifies:

the discussion will take place from a materialist/physicalist/realist point of view — Clarky

we live before 1905, when the universe was still classical and quantum mechanics was unthinkable. — Clarky

I would like to do two things in this discussion 1) Add to this list if it makes sense and 2) Discuss the various proposed assumptions and decide if they belong on the list. — Clarky

Only content that shows respect for these specifications/is reasonably necessary to make an argument relevant to them should be posted.

OK, well, you've made the point and laboured it a bit. If that's it, please leave the less political and more philosophically minded posters here to get on with their discussion.

Yes, it's a promising OP. Let's keep it on topic.

Postmodernism isn't a religion you sign up for that specifies 'Thou can't condemn Nazis' or whoever. That's a really perverse way to look at it.

Plus, I don't know anyone that calls themselves a 'Postmodernist' without specifying some kind of field.

And even if there were to be some kind of contradiction between being postmodernist and condemnatory of who or whatever, so much the better. We are large, we contain multitudes.

Anyway, back to the OP please.

I think both sides accuse the other of trying to fit students into a mold so that the next generation will be in their image. Everyone claims indoctrination from the other. — Hanover

I'm not talking about the political indoctrination re content that you may get at, e.g. Liberty University vs Berekley. That comes later and is more or less a separate concern. I'm talking about the philosophical underpinnings of pedagogy that define the process of education from start to finish. That's where the meat of the issue lies.

It seems that there are two competing ideas - the idea that education should serve to teach people specific skills to be productive in society and conform, and the idea that education should encourage people to come up with new ideas and think independently. — Paulm12

And everything in between. But yes, the basic polarity is between instrumentalists, often politicians and business leaders, whose goals focus on efficiency, outcome, and concord, and who see students as little more than pegs to be fitted into socio-economic roles vs holists/liberal humanists/existentialists etc., who are more likely to be educational theorists or practitioners, and who are more interested in individual development, flourishing, and creativity.

My sympathies are more with the latter, but education is a society's repoductive system and the process of reproduction is inevitably dominated by practical rather than more aspirational concerns.

You got me.

I suppose we could ban @Clarky just to meet quotas and so on.

I'm reading London Fields by Martin Amis. Would recommend.

@M777 was banned for being returning banned member @stoicHoneyBadger.

I don't see where anyone referred to you as a 'Nazi'. I'm leaving the conversation is all as there's nothing else to say. There's no thesis left to debate.

I'm not going to get into an argument about it. You've laid your cards on the table and they are there for everyone to make their own judgement about. The OP was already on shaky ground due to a lack of evidence to support its contentions. Now, the discussion has veered into transphobia there's nothing else to say from my point of view.

"Transphobia is a collection of ideas and phenomena that encompass a range of negative attitudes, feelings, or actions towards transgender people or transness in general. Transphobia can include fear, aversion, hatred, violence, anger, or discomfort felt or expressed towards people who do not conform to social gender expectations."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transphobia

I stated a fact, that's all.

Ah, so you are a transphobe.

OP explained then.

The problem here is that normal, sane people just want to live their lives. While people with nothing else to do become activists and try to validate themselves by bullying others. So normal people would rather cave in an inch to the activists, rather than try to oppose them on every stupidity they come up with. That way inch by inch and one day the whole society can't understand how it got bullied a mile by a tiny minority of blue haired nutjobs. — M777

Most of the normal, sane people I know sympathize with trans people who on the whole suffer far more serious bullying than anything 'a minority of blue haired nutjobs' ever inflicted on anyone. In fact, I don't see much evidence of this PC bullying of the 'man on the street'. And I don't see why it's stupid to, e.g. acknowledge the existence of trans women in recognition that being a woman has a psychological as well as a biological element to it. Seems to me most people either don't care about the issue, are willing to see the nuance there, or, at worst, just don't know what to say about it, and the real minority are those who find it scary, totalitarian, threatening etc. Again, I say there's nothing to be afraid of and people (generally) aren't afraid. But if you contend there is and they are, at least present some solid evidence of the 'bullying' you are talking about, e.g. in the form of surveys or other data. Something that at least might raise the OP beyond pure conjecture.

Just want to add, I'm not suggesting equivalence of all anti-PC crusades; some are more justified than others. What I am suggesting though is that there is nothing to be afraid of. PC ideas that stand the test of time do so because they're good ideas. And the anti-PC crowd have failed throughout history to stem the tide of 'political correctness' not because totalitarianism won but because they have consistently been on the wrong side of progress. Whether or not the 'PC' multi-faceted/nuanced definition of 'woman' will stand the test of time is yet to be seen. But if it does, it will become normalised because it is a good idea; or to put it in libertarian terms, it will flourish in the marketplace of ideas by outcompeting worse ideas. This process is not totalitarianism but its opposite. And if that's what you're afraid of, then your actual bogeyman is freedom.

The tie designs are at least sufficiently abominable to accurately reflect the minds behind the marketing idea. :smile:

"This was fine in the fifties, but by the time the sixties rolled around the internal thought police were making people hesitant about considering women subservient. If you asked the average Joe on the street if this depiction of women was OK, some would appear afraid to say it was. Very unhealthy and a sign of the totalitarian regime to come."



Well, no, actually, like most 'politically correct' ideas reactionaries are scared of, it's called progress.

So yet another thread motivated by gender hysterics. Got it. — Xtrix

There's a rash of right-wing hysteria about the woman definition thing going on. I was reading an unrelated news piece today and underneath it was a comment claiming you could be imprisoned in Britain for denying that a woman can have testicles (!). More of the scary totalitarian narrative. The government may try to kill you, so you need a gun, and they will imprison you for speaking 'common sense', so you need to fight political correctness.

Seems to me the banal reality is that the person on the street might hesistate when asked to define a woman because there's no longer a very simplistic definition. Society has injected some nuance into it. And not everyone agrees on the answer. Scary, if you want one simple answer to be true and no one to be allowed to consider the actual complexity of the topic. Speaking of totalitarianism...

I'll make an effort anyhow.

Ooh... :naughty:

It's a fair point, I know.

It's optional and not a bad idea in principle. But let's not pretend this is about writing a one sentence PM. The PM will almost certainly be responded to and very often instigate a debate.

Coincidentally on reading your post my body decided to shake itself and laughter decided to happen.

I don't think this is really an issue of ignorance on NOS's part but some kind of political positioning. Best just to leave it imo as he seems wedded to the incoherency.

If you want to argue against 'magical' verbal action at a distance, you could try taking on hypnosis, which is an actually controversial topic.

There's nothing magical about it. It implies just what you agreed to in this context, necessary but not sufficient conditions for acting. This argument seems to boil down to nothing more than you not liking the word 'influence', which is fine but not worth arguing with anyone over.

You have a point. But maybe it's apt that random silly stuff goes here so the Shoutbox has more room for food talk.

A necessary condition but not a sufficient condition. — NOS4A2

That's what's known as 'influence' in this context.

So this would be the time to buy cryptocurrencies I guess. — ssu

Yes, sentiment is super bearish, which indicates to me most sellers have sold or been liquidated. Caveats are to buy quality, the bottom may not be in, and the bounce may not be immediate. But for educated investors looking long term it looks like a good time. Ethereum is what I'd be looking at with the merge supposedly imminent.

Disclaimer: Not financial advice. Never base financial decisions on what some internet rando says + most cryptocurrencies will go to zero.

Then you can admit that words influence actions while also holding they are not fully determinative of actions. In other words, we can all exit the rabbit hole and agree on the blindingly obvious.

All I know is that if I am ever confronted with an armed robber or murderer, I would like to have a gun. — NOS4A2

Sounds reasonable, but I'm not so sure. In the case of an armed robber, having a gun makes you a deadly threat and its presence might cause the criminal to kill you before you kill him/her. It's probably better just to be robbed than significantly increase the risk of being killed. As for murderers, most don't announce themselves and challenge their victims to a duel. They kill unexpectedly. In addition, gun accidents are more common than gun murders. Putting all of that together, it's not clear to me having a gun is more helpful than harmful except maybe in an exceptionally violent environment. My suspicion is we underestimate just how violent our surroundings would have to be for a gun to actually make us safer rather than increase our risk of being harmed.

And anyone suggesting our government might try to kill us would honestly raise mental health alarm bells.

Not all violent crime requires a gun to deal with if you train your police properly. We have special armed units to deal with exceptional cases. Anyhow, I never in my entire life here felt I would need a gun to protect myself and I can't ever remember it even being a topic of conversation. It's certainly not a matter of political debate. Any political party suggesting we should infuse our society with deadly weapons to make it safer would be considered morons and immediately lose power.