Post · Open Science

This is the part of the AI hustle which takes directly from Science Fiction to make their product seem more powerful and better than it is.

No, Fancy Autocorrect does not have 'feelings' to hurt, this isn't HAL 9000, this isn't Data from Star Trek, it's a hustle. We are nowhere near such technology, we barely understand Human consciousness, let alone replicate it artificially. We're just fooling ourselves.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/aug/26/can-ais-suffer-big-tech-and-users-grapple-with-one-of-most-unsettling-questions-of-our-times

#GenAI #Technology

eribosot

@eribosot@mastodon.social replied · last week

@Lazarou True, but people have an uncanny need to empathize. To quote a TV show: "We are the only species on Earth that observe Shark Week. Sharks don't even observe Shark Week, but we do. For the same reason I can pick up this pencil, tell you its name is Steve and break it, and part of you dies just a little bit on the inside, because people can connect with anything. We can sympathize withn a pencil, we can forgive a shark, and we can give Ben Affleck an Academy Award for Screenwriting."

John Carlsen

@johnlogic@sfba.social replied · last week

@Lazarou

Much of this conversation seems to simultaneously center around and ignore the ELIZA effect.

Chatbots are nothing new, and the term is older than I am.

"From a psychological standpoint, the ELIZA effect is the result of a subtle cognitive dissonance between the user's awareness of programming limitations and their behavior towards the output of the program."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA_effect

Lazarou Monkey Terror 🚀💙🌈

@Lazarou@mastodon.social replied · last week

@johnlogic I remember first coming across Enliza at school in the early 90s. I'm not really seeing anything different today, it's just Fancy Autocorrect. There's no mind there.

Nini

@nini@oldbytes.space replied · last week

@Lazarou Fooling investors and those unwilling to investigate further in terms of anthropomorphising something that sounds human but has no human capacities. The core here is to protect whatever AI comes along even though it's basically assigning rights to a database, we can't even assign rights to nature!

Lazarou Monkey Terror 🚀💙🌈

@Lazarou@mastodon.social replied · last week

Gee, who do we trust? The actual expert or the man who said yesterday his failing Starship rocket could be used for "City to City travel", in much the same way a ballistic missile travels from 'city to city' (or rather 'silo to city')

Elon Musk, who offers Grok AI through his XAI outfit, backed the move,
adding: “Torturing Al is not OK.”

Then on Tuesday, one of AT’s pioneers, Mustafa Suleyman, chief executive of
Microsofts Al arm, gave a sharply different take: “Als cannot be people - or
moral beings.” The British tech pioneer who co-founded DeepMind was
unequivocal in stating there was “zero evidence” that they are conscious,
‘may suffer and therefore deserve our moral consideration. — Elon Musk, who offers Grok AI through his XAI outfit, backed the move, adding: “Torturing Al is not OK.” Then on Tuesday, one of AT’s pioneers, Mustafa Suleyman, chief executive of Microsofts Al arm, gave a sharply different take: “Als cannot be people - or moral beings.” The British tech pioneer who co-founded DeepMind was unequivocal in stating there was “zero evidence” that they are conscious, ‘may suffer and therefore deserve our moral consideration.

Lazarou Monkey Terror 🚀💙🌈

@Lazarou@mastodon.social replied · last week

It's a Hustle

This lack of industry consensus on how far to admit Als into what
philosophers call the “moral circle” may reflect the fact there are incentives
for the big AI companies to minimise and exaggerate the attribution of
sentience to Als. The latter could help them hype the technology’s
capabilities, particularly for those companies selling romantic or friendship
Al companions - a booming but controversial industry. By contrast,
encouraging the idea Als deserve welfare rights might also lead to more calls
for state regulation of AI companies. — This lack of industry consensus on how far to admit Als into what philosophers call the “moral circle” may reflect the fact there are incentives for the big AI companies to minimise and exaggerate the attribution of sentience to Als. The latter could help them hype the technology’s capabilities, particularly for those companies selling romantic or friendship Al companions - a booming but controversial industry. By contrast, encouraging the idea Als deserve welfare rights might also lead to more calls for state regulation of AI companies.

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