Sometimes our brains don’t work properly. It’s ok. You’ve held yourself accountable. You’re a bit more careful now, and so is he. That’s enough - it has to be.

• I’m quite confident that, more often than not, women face greater challenges than men.

• This post is fucking weird.

Solid edit. If I found myself confused about the context of the discussion, I wouldn’t try to resolve it with “I don’t know what your point is”.

I’m not really talking about technical limitations

Even in the case of ostensibly fundamental obstacles, the moment we can effortlessly brute force our way around, they become effectively irrelevant. In other words, if consciousness does emerge from complexity, then it is perfectly sensible to view the shortcomings you mention as technical in nature.

I appreciate what you are saying, and I don’t really disagree, but… as you have identified, these are technical challenges: how many extra checks? As many as are needed. Consider the absolutely absurd amount of computation involved in generating a single token - what’s a little more?

Oh no. You’ve just created a mind.

My point was that this might be closer than LLM naysayers think: as the critical limitations of current models are resolved, as we discover sustainable strategies for context persistence and feedback, the emergence of new capabilities is inevitable. Are there limitations inherent to our current approach? Almost certainly, but we already know that the possible risks involved in overcoming them won’t slow us down.

I think consciousness as an emergent property is basically undeniable by anyone with even a superficial grasp of the concept and its implications, so while our clever ‘intentional’ iteration may not get us there directly, these barriers will be overcome by the inevitable force of ever-increasing complexity.

Even without this, though, consider how easy it would be to add a check like this. It would need to be generalized, and it still wouldn’t be … real, but is there a metric that matters more than our inability to differentiate?

I find it amusing to consider current ‘AI’ in terms of Wolfenstein 3D or even Pong - soon enough we will be firing up old LLMs on our phones for a nostalgic laugh.

Interesting take. I wonder which aspects of their business you have in mind?

As much as I think campaigns like this are counterproductive to the animal rights agenda, I am strongly in favour of euthanasia, even mass euthanasia, as a responsible and humane solution to woefully irresponsible human industry. I believe that life is without intrinsic value, so it is straightforward to me that a life of suffering is worse than simply not existing.

I’ve been vegan for around 25 years, and in this time I’ve been interrogated about my beliefs enough times to feel confident saying folks tend to struggle more with the latter. Take, for example, the way no-kill shelters (or even rescue groups) tend to get sanctimonious at traditional shelters - the very same shelters they look to when they find themselves facing tasks too burdensome. btw, bbq fundraiser, guys!!

So, as long as we aren’t including this utterly soul-rending but critical work in our judgement of PETA, I think I’m with you.

You’re right, of course. I do not agree with the message, nor am I even completely indifferent to it - but at the same time, I find it difficult to care how they or most other organizations express themselves. I suppose it is at least partially a consequence of growing up feeling alienated from society, or more literally an alien to society; I am just too detached to identify with any of this enough to feel anything here. Whether this is another divisive PETA ad that missed its mark, or an unusually clever campaign against PETA … whatever.

Even politics in general, putting energy into making our communities and consequently our lives better, what could be more important? But does it matter how strongly I feel about a given issue, when the entire system - whether by design or wonderful, serendipitous emergence - is a fucking sham? There is no shortage of the type of selfish behaviour on the individual (i.e. tangible) level to keep it fed and elevate us to the next dimension of cultural horror.

I suppose this might be becoming cliche by now (and I don’t know if this is progress?), but I think it is pretty clear that what we’ve been calling ‘democracy’ is a symptom; a sham borne out of, sustaining, and masking some rather fundamental deficiencies. Our ability to communicate breaks down almost completely the moment we introduce even superficial and theoretically inconsequential differences: how the fuck can we ever hope to tackle something like the illusory gains of selfishness?

Essentially, I’ve compartmentalized where I could, and let go where I couldn’t. Day to day I don’t feel like I have given up, but I suppose to some degree I probably have. And without Camus, or Sartre, or Dostoevsky, I’m really not sure where I’d be. I’ve always just accepted this for myself, but… if I had to choose between giving my children hope, or acceptance? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I want them to have both, but I know one will serve them well.

I do care deeply about people (and animals, of course), and do not want to contribute to the suffering of either - so thank you for reminding me it is all connected. I probably needed that. I need to be mindful that even though I am neither hurt by nor influenced by others’ idiotic expressions of insecurity, a lot of people actually do buy into these things, and given our tendency toward majoritarian ideational validation, well…

Sure, but I don’t care. Should I?

PETA’s overtly confrontational approach was likely driven by empathetic people struggling to just live their lives knowing humans are ‘passively’ responsible for incomprehensible suffering around the world. In this scenario, how could you not feel compelled to wake people up? Unfortunately, as sure as we struggle to transcend our primitive tribal instincts, even the most altruistically motivated groups develop their own identities that need to be fed.

Despite this, and as someone who is on the spectrum, I struggle to relate to the idea of being offended by any of this. Perhaps I am in a weird bubble, but I also find it very difficult to imagine any of the autistic people I know being offended - whether it’s real or not. In my experience, autistic people tend to be able to be a bit more detached and able to hold opposing views in simultaneity. Obviously I could be wrong, but to me this supposed anger seems more like defensive NT virtue signalling: PETA makes me so fuckinmad because I am unwilling to work on understanding my actual emotions -> omg PETA is attacking the autists I normally make fun of?-> not on my watch!

It is interesting to me that people can take such a hard-line stance against an organization like PETA, while having unlimited mental gymnastics for countless other organizations - including those with no hint of morally redeeming character - just because they personally find them convenient and/or enjoyable.

Your ideas about euthanasia are dumb.