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Comment by skeledrew | Hacker News Reader

> That feels awful

Only if you subscribe to the "humans are special" rhetoric, in which case I'm - maybe - sorry to say the feeling will only intensify.

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Upvoted. I think that said humans should get used to the idea that their intellect is special only insofar as it was first, and if they want to adopt or invent a value system that keeps them at the center, that's actually fine and good for their survival. But said humans would do well to stop laboriously and curmudgeonly moving the posts that mark the goals, and get busy trying to coax the AI to do useful things for them and for the species as a whole.

> Upvoted. I think that said humans should get used to the idea that their intellect is special only insofar as it was first

And used to build the LLMs of today. We'll see how that evolves once LLMs have to feed LLMs with their own "intellect".

What did humans build off of but themselves?

LLMs are not humans. It's good to remember that. They're also not God.

If human intelligence is so boring and non-special, how exactly did LLMs get this smart? Is it not from a) being developed by humans and b) being fed a very large portion of all human-generated text?

Without the human intellect to emulate, LLMs would be nothing.

There are many here who hate humans I think.

Prob because their life sucks.

LLMs learn from patterns in human-provided data (and soon each other and directly from nature). Humans learn(ed) from patterns in nature-provided data, and eventually each other (and, increasingly, LLMs).

"Boring": that's a straw man, it was never in my comment. I did say that people should stop grumbling and use the tool for good things. I'm not quite sure what was your point, but it sounded like you disagreed (one doesn't deploy the straw-man weapon otherwise), and this "Without the human intellect to emulate, LLMs would be nothing" sounds like an expression of grief, which admittedly is a very reasonable feeling for a number of reasons. What confuses me is that creating an intellect at the human level or above is indeed a great human achievement, but it's not a good thing because...? Maybe an emulation of the thing is not as good as the thing, was that your meaning?

Here, let me add my own little straw man: "if God didn't make us, how exactly did humans get so smart? Is not from a) being created in His image and b) being given His love? Without God, we would be mud from the ground (and a rib!)." If you agree with this statement, then, understandably, everything we have done since the Enlightenment has been to secure our place in hell, and LLMs are a particularly impertinent such device, but compared to a true human mind like a figurine of clay to a true person.

But, if of all things the measure is Man, of the things that are, that they are, and of the things that are not, that they are not, and Man keeps measuring the thing and the thing indeed seems very smart, then Man should stop moping and deal with the consequences of their actions: either ban the thing or use it for their own benefit.

No idea what you're on about. It is provable that humans developed LLMs, there is no proof that God created humans. It's possible that a human creation will someday be more capable and intelligent than humans on all fronts, but it still stands that without the foundation of human intellect, there would be no LLMs. So I don't understand people who act like "AI" is a separate species that came to exist independently and proves human inferiority, that humans need to accept that they're not special, and that we should rush to submit to our new AI overlords. If anything, the existence and capabilities of AI proves that human intellect is still impressive and versatile, because it is a direct reflection of human knowledge.

>> proves human inferiority, that humans need to accept that they're not special, and that we should rush to submit to our new AI overlords

That's a lot of axes you're grinding simultaneously my friend

I have seen lots of comments to that effect on HN. "How do you know whether your brain is not just a next token predictor too?"

I'm on the side of humans remaining special, at least on planet Earth. My strong sense is that a large majority of the public feels that way, and voting results in the future will start to reflect that regarding AI regulations.

I agree with Frank Herbert's view of "thinking machines".

I genuinely don't understand how some people are so self-hating.

What's self-hating about acknowledging a fact? There's literally nothing a human can do that can't be done by another entity/group with even near-equivalent intelligence, alien or artificial.

We don't even know if that is true, and even if it were true, that doesn't mean that humans aren't special. We don't have to devalue ourselves. Our values can and should be 100% anthropocentric in my view.

It's interesting that you think that acknowledging we aren't special means we're devaluing ourselves.

I don't really see how going from humans are special to humans aren't special is anything but a devaluing.

Humans value each other, through the myriad forms of relationships we - strive to - maintain. They may change, but they'll never completely disappear, no matter what. There's just nothing objectively special about any of it, as other organisms also - can - have relationships. Same for the things we do: it can all be done by some non-human entity, be it another organic specie, alien or machine. Become comfortable with the facts as your mental stability likely depends on it now more than ever.

I'm talking about the value of humans qua humanity, not the individual people that I value. I think you're being willfully obtuse.

Not at all. There's as much value in human qua human as there is value in cat qua cat, or oak tree qua oak tree, ie there is value in the human species in as much as humans are distinct/unique as such.

How often do you say that to your wife?

You're - deliberately? - confusing scope. There's the objective and the subjective. Humans not being objectively special doesn't mean one human can't be considered special by another. And if my wife doesn't get that distinction, well... I'd probably question my choice in partner.

Nobody claims we are objectively special, whatever would that even mean. Person said they feel awful which is clearly subjective and you proceeded to bash him for that. You are on hackernews, we are aware we are atoms.

Person made a claim about intelligence becoming a product (arguably it has been on the market for a long time; see knowledge workers) "that you can [now] quantify and buy with electricity". That points to the rhetoric often pushed that humans are [objectively] special, because intelligence. Or at least were. And it's the reality wakeup call that's driving that feeling of awfulness/despair/outrage/whatever else, as has been posted about here and elsewhere multiple times.

This is a problem of wealth distribution and it's fair to feel in a such way if your edge as an employee is being taken away. Being or feeling special is irrelevant.

You're shifting. Nothing was said here about job security. As stated, this is someone who feels awful because intelligence is now a thing that's available to machines. A similar - albeit lighter - tone to this[0], where in the article the author describes being in some "spiritual crisis", and that "The creation (or even the pursuit) of novel mathematics is one way that humans have historically accessed the ineffable and encountered the divine and mystical". Have a look at some of the comments, if you never saw it before.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49048681

This is a 2 months old thread and written by someone else. It only shows you like putting others down.

If someone believes deeply that they can fly if they jump off a cliff and flap their arms, is it putting them down to tell them it's fiction and things will end badly if they try?

I hardly see any mortal danger here in a way you do. If you really want to help try making your comments sound less aggressive. Now it seems as if you are jumping out of a bush and beating people up with a club because you think they are headed for the cliff. You must have already noticed what are you trying to say is rarely taken at a face value because of that.

Even if there's no immediate mortal danger, there's still potential danger. Like said person may live on the plains with no intention of going anywhere with a cliff. But they eventually may. Or they could infect others with their belief, like how cults tend to work.

I really don't want anyone to take anything I say at face value. What I want is for people to generally be more logical and think things through on their own, particularly things in which there's at least potential danger. And sad to say I've instead been seeing a lot of kool aid drinking, even around here.

How do you get "self-hating" out of that? I think you're projecting your own attitudes about AI onto the parent comment. Saying "humans aren't special in terms of evaluation criteria <X>" is not self-hating, it's potentially a statement of fact.

I'm imagining that someone like you would have argued that animals weren't conscious, or couldn't communicate, back in the day, because humans were "special" that way.

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