tjbrennan

I think about this story every time a new model comes out. When ChatGPT first launched, two big questions surfaced:

1. Is it conscious?

2. How do we put it to work?

It may have seemed obvious that 1 is false so we could skip straight to 2, but when 1 becomes true will it be too late to reconsider 2?

Thank you for posting this. It's a very long read so I fear it won't gain much traction, but I think it helped shed light on a malaise that I've felt since adolescence. Therapists and partners have told me I don't practice enough self-love, but to say I self-loathe also felt like a lie. This line in particular crystallized the disparity: "Pathological shame is an irrational sense of defectiveness, a feeling not of having crossed to the wrong side of the boundary but of having been born there." I'll keep this writing in mind as I move forward.

You're in luck: https://github.com/victorqribeiro/retroSynthwave

This plus the macos app Plash makes for a sweet desktop wallpaper.

You can click through the citation and read the excerpt. It's an amusing bit of writing about the joys of discovery.

$44,000 per hour of flight time really puts things in perspective.

I recently learned of Dave Grossman and his police training courses that appear to encourage murder[0]. I'm not sure how prolific his teaching is, but it says a lot about the fearful mindset these officers have.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Grossman_(author)

I recently lost access to my two factor authenticator. I had saved most but not all of my recovery codes. I was surprised that a couple of websites I didn't have recovery codes for allowed me to disable 2FA after login but before authentication. It saved me from having to contact support, but it seemed to defeat the purpose of 2FA.

I feel like I'm the only person who uses Caps Lock. When I learned to touch type, I was taught to use the shift key on the side opposite the letter being typed. When typing more than two capital letters in a row, I'd rather hit Caps Lock than paddle my pinkies back and forth. It's a hard habit to break.

The thing that consciousness has that is not simply an idea is sensation. At a certain point, it becomes indescribable.

I lost some respect for Chalmers when I heard his TED talk that suggested consciousness was a fundamental force. He has some good ideas about consciousness but also a bit too mystical for me to agree with.

Even better, +"5" will coerce the string to an integer. I'm ashamed to admit that I've abused it.

The scope is the qualia of color and what it is to behold color in your mind. With all due respect, you sound like Mary in the Mary's Room thought experiment. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_argument

Iridium flares are a really neat night sky phenomenon to look for. The predictions can be found on satellite tracking sites [1]. I caught one by accident when I noticed a satellite passing overhead on my way to my car one night. Over the next few seconds it increased to dazzling brightness, and then it disappeared just as quickly. I couldn't believe my luck.

[1] http://www.heavens-above.com/IridiumFlares.aspx

Many of these quotes have to do with theories of consciousness. Describing consciousness is still a philosophical problem. I wouldn't call this "mysticism," just scientists trying to grapple with the mind-body problem.

This sounds like Functionalism to me. Until we can actually map out the complexity being described in the article, consciousness is still a philosophical problem. I appreciate the scientific approach, but I think Tononi's definition of consciousness is flawed (or just nonexistent). I've seen other attempts to apply science to the mind-body problem, and it yielded flat-out pseudoscience. This was not convincing either.