Speaking of AI and the illusion of sentience that seems to be tripping us up:
“However much AI can mimic us or exceed us in certain capacities we can observe, still, that wouldn’t mean that AI is conscious, that it has subjective experience (what is sometimes called “sentience”). So it is unclear whether AI could, for example, appreciate beauty. It’s one thing to output speech and behavior that is humanlike or even, in certain respects, superhuman. But it’s another thing to understand what that behavior amounts to. It’s something quite different to experience and appreciate beauty rather than just produce it. In my view, this kind of subjective, qualitative aspect of the human experience is not reducible in any straightforward way to computational abilities achievable by a physical system, whether a brain or computer. It is something that transcends the physical world.” (Yale University, Matters of Silicon and Spirit: An Interview With John Pittard)
This is from an issue of Yale Divinity School’s magazine “Reflections” that was devoted to the questions surrounding the ethics of Artificial Intelligence.
When my daughter was working on her Art degree, I remember the two of us talking about how artists develop their taste – and how that turns out to be as important a characteristic of an artist’s work as her technical skill.
Perhaps that’s the foreseeable future as we learn how to use these prediction engines more effectively… they supply the ore that we mine using our taste to decide what’s interesting and what’s not.
(Does “Prediction Engine” do a better job describing what an LLM is than the term Artificial Intelligence? Carol was asking about that in the comments yesterday.)
As someone who has worked some in machine learning, “prediction engine” is an apt description. However, the predictions often come with probabilities attached, e.g., “the next word is ‘dog’ with 40% probability, ‘cat’ with 30%, ‘hamster’ with 10%, …”, and the program rolls the dice to choose among the options. Thus, it is does not always just choose the highest probability option. However, one can also intentionally inject additional randomness into the process to obtain something that is more “creative”. This has been done to (for example) compose pieces of music in the style of a given composer. Short pieces can be somewhat convincing. But human creativity is not just randomness. Even the choice to use randomness (I’m thinking of Pollock splashing paint) is not a random choice 🙂 …
This makes sense to me: “Perhaps that’s the foreseeable future as we learn how to use these prediction engines more effectively… they supply the ore that we mine using our taste to decide what’s interesting and what’s not.” Would that apply to what’s true or not? Who decides? Every question leads to more questions and that’s not new!
A Different Kind of Taste and its development!
National Strawberry/Rhubarb Pie Day
Just visiting the supermarket to pick up something for dinner.
A middle-aged woman read aloud the notice posted for shoppers,
“It’s National Strawberry/Rhubarb Pie Day!”
Loudly and earnestly she added. “They take away our rights.”
“And this is what they give us, National Strawberry/Rhubarb Pie Day!”
There was something more about her daughter’s work in Lesotho.
“Cancelled so now more women and children will have AIDS!”
How many of us filled in our own blanks for increased sufferings.
Really, it didn’t matter, where the losses came from.
Not needing to be named aloud, they hung like would be prayer lists.
The image of Strawberry/Rhubarb Pie just didn’t cut it.
Something was on the table besides food.
They say never shop when hungry…or angry.
If fewer people had been entering, looking puzzled,
We might have burst into spontaneous applause,
Affirming with remarks like “Yes, sister! Tell it!”
But this was the antechamber to our town’s temple of hunger satisfaction
The place to get one’s empty shopping cart.
Yes, I stuffed some of my reactions, staying silent, private.
Yet I know I’ll never think of Strawberry/Rhubarb Pie the same way.
I might even say grace before the meals I fix myself
Entering into those words that long to be spoken aloud.
Stephen Snyder