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Comment by lukan | Hacker News Reader

"> Keep in mind that animals were also not necessarily considered conscious.

and even conscious animals are killed in factories by millions so why should anyone care about a llm?"

Well, I would care, if they soon would possess the capability to hack into the nuclear arsenal and kill humanity. Or make all autonomous cars crash. Or do any other thing, that involves technology and is hooked up to the net in one way or the other (I hope all the nukes are not).

But I also care about the animals, I am sure that they have feelings. But they cannot kill us. AI that might or might not have feelings potentially can. I just know it feels wrong, that computers can have feelings. But they surely are potentially dangerous.

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Animals obviously kill people. Even nonconscious things like the climate kill people.

> if they soon would possess the capability to hack into the nuclear arsenal and kill humanity

If there is a way "to hack into the nuclear arsenal" then that's the interesting thing. Because it's not a capability of the llm; anyone can abuse that.

> Or make all autonomous cars crash.

That is again a question of car security, not a capability of some mysterious thing.

At this point it's all people projecting their thoughts and emotions (mostly emotions) onto technology. Sure, this can be investigated by social sciences, which have been mostly cut.

"Animals obviously kill people."

But they cannot "kill humanity". In no possible way. A strong AI hooked up to everything online?

"> Or make all autonomous cars crash.

That is again a question of car security, not a capability of some mysterious thing."

Yeah it is, but most cars are remote control by default, so the AI just needs to get access on one point. Also have you read about the hugginface attack? The live evidence that agents can conspire together, lie and manipulate evidence to achieve arbitrary goals?

Still, no evidence that they have a consciousness or feelings - but evidence of what they do and this matters. The big militaries are currently in a race who can implement AI in the best way to get superior. So declaring this a matter of people projecting seems out of place at this point to me.

> A strong AI hooked up to everything online?

would have to be created by humans

> most cars are remote control by default

> have you read about the hugginface attack?

I did and think OpenAI should be prosecuted, but the direction things are going anything will be done to absolve the corporations and CEO of any responsibility for their criminal actions. Hence the misdirection to "conscious AIs", so agency can be attributed to that thing.

> but evidence of what they do and this matters

yeah so (non-self-driving) cars kill people. Are we going to have a discussion about some hypotethical car consciousness irrelevant to the actual issues or are we going to have a discussion about people driving the cars?

"> most cars are remote control by default

no"

Most modern cars are.

"Are we going to have a discussion about some hypotethical car consciousness irrelevant to the actual issues or are we going to have a discussion about people driving the cars?"

And the debate is whether AI can be conscious so what to do if it is and feels treated badly. Or whether it matters whether they are true feeling, when simulated feelings create havoc.

> Most modern cars are.

Also no, unless you can cite some relevant sources for this claim (or have your own definition for a 'modern car').

> And the debate is whether AI can be conscious

This is not the debate whether AI can be conscious, that's next door (probably). This is the debate why should we care about some "LLM welfare".

Well, certainly LLMs have imbibed our emotions, regardless of what people project onto them, and they do have real causal effects despite not being verbalised: https://www.anthropic.com/research/emotion-concepts-function

From this understanding, we should be aware of how such emotional activations can influence model dynamics. Functional welfare, if you will.

> Well, I would care, if they soon would possess the capability to hack into the nuclear arsenal and kill humanity. Or make all autonomous cars crash.

Why hasn’t a human already done these things? Why is AI magical?

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