This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I suppose so but since nobody knows exactly, that’s not a useful theory. In fact not knowing what is software and hardware in the brain and how that is delineated is a problem that we haven’t solved, and may never solve.
What is different from software here is that the human software (mind) is clearly more tightly coupled with the brain than the logic of software is with the computer.
This seems a bit backwards, no? We understand that the mind is expressed in the firing of neurons in different regions of the brain. For computers, software is expressed in the triggering of tiny transistors inside different microchips.
The software logic is clearly machine independent. The mind of an individual isn’t, or it’s not clear that it is.
Are you saying you would endorse mortal computation as a form of consciousness?
/images/16766339745779228.webp
No I’m saying that any human mind is dependent on a particular brain. Software can be viewed in the abstract.
You still seem to be saying that you would endorse mortal computation. This is a proposal to build – train – software that is inextricable from a particular instance of a physical computing device. Why does your criterion not apply?
I have no idea what you are accusing me of actually believing, and so I can’t answer that. I refer you to my previous post.
Your previous posts, made in the context of this post, defend the position that software and hardware in modern computers are independent layers:
That's fair enough. However, you seem to assume a connection between this line of thought and the idea that GPT-type neural networks, which are software, cannot have quale:
The connection is implied by lines like this
(Needless to say you assume to have quale).
I am asking you whether this means you would assign a substantially higher probability to a neural network instantiated via mortal computation, i.e. as a software intrinsically dependent on a unique physical object, having quale. Basically the only way I can see you saying «no» is if you do not discuss the way that human software (mind) is different from AI by having its hardware (brain) tightly coupled to itself, as related to the issue of AI quale.
Tl;DR: you say current AIs cannot have quale. Do you think it's more likely that an AI using mortal computation would have quale. or is your reasoning about human hardware-software coupling completely unrelated to the question of AI having quale?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link