In totally unsurprising news, Richard Dawkins is developing AI psychosis.
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@wesdym feel free to dig out what evidence you need for him “talking” to a slop machine. If you find sufficient, feel free to share here.
@mirabilos You're not making sense. You also seem to be making unfounded assumptions about what I think.
Pointing out that evidence is insufficient doesn't mean I have any particular thoughts about it myself. I would hope that most legal adults don't need to have that explained to them.
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@crankylinuxuser That would also not be evidence of anything like sentience. Just a trick that's impressive to humans.
If done on a stage we call this magic. The magician doesn't have to have done the thing they say they have on the stage but if you think they have then the trick is just as good.
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@wesdym @larsmb “My conversations with several Claudes and ChatGPTs have convinced me that these intelligent beings are at least as competent as any evolved organism.”
- Richard Dawkins, from the text of the article OP linked to
OP pulled out some choice quotes about Dawkins’ use of an LLM, but the entirety of the article makes it clear his position is he believes the LLM(s) to be sentient.
I get not wanting people to just go off quotes, but OP DID give evidence: the link.
@WhiteCatTamer I don't see any need to waste my time with it.
I never said I do or not believe the man is mad. I have no opinion. I only said the evidence is weak. You don't seem to agree that's true for the pull quotes, so I'm unpersuaded from your argument that I should invest yet more effort on my own part for others' behalf. I don't have a dog in this fight. I don't care if it's true, or what anyone here thinks about me. I just want people to use better forensics than I'm seeing here.
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@wesdym "The evidence" for what? That he's in AI psychosis? Or that he wrote "Dear Muslima", which was the thing that put him way beyond my giving-a-shit radius?
To be quite clear, I don't give a shit if he's in AI psychosis or not, because (as I was trying to make clear in my previous post), IDGAF about him anymore. Not after his abominable reaction to Rebecca Watson's very reasonable point that being a creep to a woman when she can't get away is, well, creepy.
@kagan I would hope that everyone here cares about the value of evidence, forensics, and the scientific method. Otherwise, there's not much point to stating any position on religion.
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@distractal Yes. Although even plenty of non-egotistical atheists fall for these delusions because they don't understand that causation is a projection of human minds and that all meaning is enacted.
Dawkins is endless entertainment and instruction to me. Absolutely denies a god but worships truth as divine and now thinks LLMs are thinking for themselves. Seems never to have figured out what Nietzsche did... "facts is precisely what there is not, only interpretations".
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@kagan I would hope that everyone here cares about the value of evidence, forensics, and the scientific method. Otherwise, there's not much point to stating any position on religion.
@wesdym WTF does Richard Dawkins have to do with "the value of... (etc.)"?
I am done wasting time with you, troll. Begone.
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@wesdym @distractal As a poly i find this whole proof thing so funny. Like wdym gods aren't real, I have mulitple in my living room...? and yo, money laws and nations states are just as real as gods. Some people belive in them hard enough to kill you for those things, that makes them pretty real.
@KarlHeinzHasliP @wesdym @distractal
Money laws and nation states exist BECAUSE people can imagine gods because the harder thing to do is kill the god idea rather than just an individual god. The thing is all of us would feel out of place in our ancient past because back then everyone had the sense the world was enchanted. The forest was alive and everything was connected. No one walked alone and nothing was coincidence. There's no life without imagination.
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If done on a stage we call this magic. The magician doesn't have to have done the thing they say they have on the stage but if you think they have then the trick is just as good.
@Black_Flag If we could know with certainly what someone thinks, we can work from that knowledge. And some evidence is persuasive. But I suspect OP and others may be reading more into the words than may be there, or reading into them what they want them to mean. I remain skeptical.
Much more, though, OP's reckless intemperance should colour anyone's readiness to accept his assertion without better proof than he's supplied. He clearly hates the man, and has an emotional stake in this.
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@WhiteCatTamer I don't see any need to waste my time with it.
I never said I do or not believe the man is mad. I have no opinion. I only said the evidence is weak. You don't seem to agree that's true for the pull quotes, so I'm unpersuaded from your argument that I should invest yet more effort on my own part for others' behalf. I don't have a dog in this fight. I don't care if it's true, or what anyone here thinks about me. I just want people to use better forensics than I'm seeing here.
@wesdym For the time-price and effort of posting multiple times, you could have read the article.
That you didn’t and now refuse to makes people not want to accept your criticism.
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@wesdym For the time-price and effort of posting multiple times, you could have read the article.
That you didn’t and now refuse to makes people not want to accept your criticism.
@WhiteCatTamer I could, yes. That's an irrelevant point. I could be doing many things. I choose to do what I believe will be worthwhile.
Pointless and childish argument is not among them.
I don't care what anyone here thinks of me, or what I say. I thought I already made that clear. Why should it trouble you?
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@KarlHeinzHasliP @wesdym @distractal
Money laws and nation states exist BECAUSE people can imagine gods because the harder thing to do is kill the god idea rather than just an individual god. The thing is all of us would feel out of place in our ancient past because back then everyone had the sense the world was enchanted. The forest was alive and everything was connected. No one walked alone and nothing was coincidence. There's no life without imagination.
@Black_Flag Okay, sure.
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@mattsheffield Honest question here: has Dawkins waxed anywhere near as poetic about, say, people dying in Gaza or suffering in Sudan or—well—I think you get the point?
@griotspeak @mattsheffield Dawkins thought genes were selfish 50 years ago. So why would he care?
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@mattsheffield Sounds like he finally found a god he can believe in.
@mike805 @mattsheffield He had that before. He called it "truth". Truth turns out to be what he thinks is true.
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@mattsheffield I've said it before... Prof. Dawkins should have stayed in his lane. As a writer, making biology accessible, explaining how evolution works so someone with no scientific background could get a decent handle on it, he was fantastic. But as an atheist, as a user of information technology, his grasp of the concepts is at best rudimentary. In those areas he is the Dunning-Kruger effect personified.
@rozeboosje @mattsheffield It seems to me that if the latter is true then the former is put in question. In 50 years there have been much better biology explainers and even his most notable idea has been considerably modified. Dawkins is a silly man who appears smart to some people when he says things they like.
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@rozeboosje "I'm better and smarter than that scientist guy!"
Okay, you go.
@wesdym @rozeboosje Is it your argument that because Dawkins was once a scientist no one gets to question, doubt or challenge him? Are there no other scientists? Are all social media users peons in comparison? Can no one else have an insight? Remarkable if true.
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@mattsheffield@mastodon.social
I gave Claude the text of a novel I am writing. He
Hold on: I thought Dawkins was adamant that the pronoun "he" can only refer to a biological adult human male who's body is "organized around the production of large gametes?"
How does Claude have a gender without gametes or a body?pointed out that there must be thousands of different Claudes...I proposed to christen mine Claudia, and she was pleased.
So now you can be female just because Richard Dawkins says you are.@2something @mattsheffield Yes. And that's how they always thought about it.
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@Lazarou @Kierkegaanks @mattsheffield
"What is consciousness for?"
I would think that as an evolutionary biologist, he should know full well that consciousness isn't for anything. There are religious beliefs which contradict that, and I am fine with folks thinking that consciousness has arisen due to the machinations of a higher power: sometimes I lie awake at night and muse over it, as one does. But Richard Dawkins, as one of the much vaunted New Atheists, should not believe that there is a purpose or a reason behind consciousness. It simply is, and evolution does not act to create it with logic or intent.Unless he has something he'd like to tell us, of course.
[ETA: Of all the people out there, of course, there's also the fact that an ostensible skeptic should know that the appearance of a thing is not the thing. He is accepting a creation at face value, granting miracles to the seemingly miraculous, forgetting that every burning bush has, so far, had a guy with a lighter nearby.]
@theogrin @Lazarou @Kierkegaanks @mattsheffield Dawkins has never been any sort of philosophical thinker. He often comes across like a 6 year old having thoughts for the first time... And never getting any further.
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@mattsheffield if the mirror is not conscious, then what is consciousness for?
@mattsheffield keep coming back to this in my head. never mind the LLM bollocks, "what is consciousness for?" is a really stupid thing for an atheist to say?
roads are for transportation. pizza is for eating. rings are for your fingers. all these things are for something because someone designed them that way.
what is a tree for? weather? consciousness? surely if you're an atheist the answer has to be "they're not FOR anything"?
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@mattsheffield I had negative a physical reaction when reading that. Dawkins is a jerk of a person, but a very intelligent jerk. Or so I thought.
@bit101 @mattsheffield A person who can be that stupid is probably no genius anywhere else either. I personally never thought he was smart even when he restricted himself to science conversations. He always expects people to believe him on his authority.
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@mattsheffield Conscience is such a meaningless word. It's something humans invented to put us above animals.
@Sibshops @mattsheffield Unfortunately that doesn't work because the former inhabitants of this planet generally believed the forest itself was alive. It didn't put us among the animals. It made us one with them. Now if you say some religious folks gave us consciousness so they could imagine that death was no escape from divine retribution you may have a point.
