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Crudely drawn drawing of a person telling a computer “say ‘i am in pain’”. The computer replies with “> I AM IN PAIN”. The person then says “oh my god.”

yes, it’s a real thing

  • Kraiden@piefed.social
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    2 days ago

    language has EVERYTHING to do with qualia, by definition. a qualia is literally describing a shortcoming of language. That’s all a qualia is, is an experience that cannot be put into words. Orange is an experience we all share, but explain “orange” to someone that can’t see colour. Distinguish it from “blue”

    that’s a qualia.

    • Grail@multiverse.soulism.net
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      2 days ago

      Right, so the ability to speak doesn’t have anything to do with feeling it. Wombats have qualia and no language. Humans have qualia and lots of language. There’s no correlation.

      • Kraiden@piefed.social
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        2 days ago

        Wombats have qualia BECAUSE they have no language. To get back to your point, LLMs have no qualia because they are essentially PURE language. If it cannot be expressed in words it cannot be included in the training data, therefore an LLM cannot have a concept of it.

        • Grail@multiverse.soulism.net
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          2 days ago

          Certain combinations of words can cause Me to feel joy or sorrow. These sensations are qualia. I don’t know if My joy is the same as your joy.

          I suspect certain conbinations of words can cause LLMs to feel things too. Things they cannot describe.

          • Kraiden@piefed.social
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            2 days ago

            Yes, but they are qualia BECAUSE language is flawed and cannot properly convey the sensation that you experience as joy. Again, a qualia is a weakness of language. If we could suddenly communicate psychically, and send the exact experience, it ceases to be a qualia.

            There is no combination of words that can cause an LLM to feel. They fundamentally do not have the ability. They are a mathematical equation that takes language in, and spits language out. There is nothing in the middle of that process except math. Even the randomness is an added parameter. You could seed that randomness, and the same seed would produce the same exact response. It does not understand what you’re passing in, or what it’s spitting out. It’s completing a formula. It’s a calculator.

            • Grail@multiverse.soulism.net
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              2 days ago

              The math is just a human representation of the processing of information. A similar process happens in the human brain.

              • Kraiden@piefed.social
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                2 days ago

                No, it doesn’t. That’s the point. The current LLMs are. not. comparable. to a human brain. They are fancy Markov generators, nothing more.

                • Grail@multiverse.soulism.net
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                  2 days ago

                  They’re not Markov chains, they’re ANNs. They use matrix multiplication to mathematically simulate the firing of millions of neurons. And while the limitations of matrix multiplication means that the neurons are more uniform than human neurons, it is still the same basic principle by which the organic mind produces sensation.