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Blakut t1_j77l70x wrote

It is hard to say if a device is sentient when we can't really define sentience without pointing at another human and going "like that". And if that is our standard, then any device that we can't distinguish between it and a sentient being, can be considered sentient. I know people were fast to dismiss the turing test when chatbots became more capable, but maybe there's still something to it?

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spiritus_dei OP t1_j77my5l wrote

Agreed. Even short of being sentient if it has a plan and can implement it we should take it seriously.

Biologists love to debate whether a virus is alive -- but alive or not we've experienced firsthand that a virus can cause major problems for humanity.

The dystopian storyline would go, "Well, all of the systems our down, and the nuclear weapons have all been fired, but thank God the AIs weren't sentient. Things would have been much, much worse. Now let's all sit around the campfire and enjoy our first nuclear winter."

=-)

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Blakut t1_j77o7gg wrote

i don't think a simple piece of code can be dangerous, and probably not a lot of systems will be integrated with AI anytime soon. The problem is the piece of code in the hands of humans can become dangerous.

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spiritus_dei OP t1_j785xi1 wrote

>The dystopian storyline would go, "Well, all of the systems our down, and the nuclear weapons have all been fired, but thank God the AIs weren't sentient. Things would have been much, much worse. Now let's all sit around the campfire and enjoy our first nuclear winter."

What about a simple piece of rogue RNA?

That's a code.

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Blakut t1_j788j67 wrote

it is a code, but actually it's much more than that. It's a self replicating piece of code packaged in a capsule that allows it to survive and propagate. Like a computer virus. But you know, computer viruses are written and disseminated by people. They don't evolve on their own.

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spiritus_dei OP t1_j78ago8 wrote

All of that is possible with a sophisticated enough AI model. It can even write computer viruses.

In the copyright debates the AI engineers have contorted themselves into a carnival act telling the world that the outputs of the AI art are novel and not a copy. They've even granted the copyright to the prompt writers in some instances.

I'm pretty sure we won't have to wait for too long to see the positive and negative effects of unaligned AI. It's too bad we're not likely to have a deep discussion as a society about whether enough precautions have been taken before we experience it.

Machine language programmers are clearly not the voice of reason when it comes to this topic. Anymore more than virologists pushing gain of function research were the people who should have been steering the bus.

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Blakut t1_j78jn2y wrote

"All of that is possible with a sophisticated enough AI model. It can even write computer viruses." only directed by a human, so far.

"In the copyright debates the AI engineers have contorted themselves into a carnival act telling the world that the outputs of the AI art are novel and not a copy. They've even granted the copyright to the prompt writers in some instances." - idk, they might be

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Ulfgardleo t1_j77rx53 wrote

how should it plan? It does not have persistent memory to have any form of time-consistyency. the memory starts with the beginning of the session and ends with the end of the session. next session does not know about previous session.

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it lacks everything necessary to have something like a plan.

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