> I pointed out the parallel in both statements. I can't do more than that.

You mean these statements?

    No one cares about teapots in space either (Russel).

    Teapots are not compelling.

I guess you did but that's pretty much leaving me breadcrumbs and expecting me to make your argument for you. It seemed to me like you were talking about reductio ad absurdum with that argument as an illustrative example. Perhaps you overestimate my cleverness.

> Which party is the burden of proof on? This is confusing since you are saying that the burden of proof is on a position (on them not being conscious).

It's metonymy. "X" stands in for "people who argue for X". May I ask if you were sincerely confused? You told me you aren't being coy but I have a hard time believing that this was so unclear.

> I have never heard about any principle in philosophy or in science that says that, given enough Looks Like A Duck points, it is a duck. Based on subjective experience, even.

If it looks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck, you should adjust your priors to assign a higher likelihood that it is a duck. All measurements contain error; you can't ever observe, "that is a duck," only "that looks like a duck". All knowledge is founded on a sufficiently deep stack of "looking like a duck" that we may assert it with confidence.

To the extent we have objective measures (like conducting a Turing test on blind participants), it can meet them too. You can't say the same of a toaster.

> We obviously can't demand a falsifiable theory here. But we have to do better than arguing from incredulity.

"It is a statistical model, ergo it is not conscious" is also an argument from incredulity. I don't know if that's your view or not but it's the one my remarks have been addressing in general.

▲ DangitBobby 11 days ago | parent | next [-]

I followed this thread all the way through and really enjoyed it.

	▲	keybored 11 days ago \| parent [-]
		It's not over yet.

▲ keybored 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> You mean these statements?

Not quite exactly.

    Teapots are not compelling. | | God is compelling t billions of people.

> I guess you did but that's pretty much leaving me breadcrumbs and expecting me to make your argument for you. It seemed to me like you were talking about reductio ad absurdum with that argument as an illustrative example.

My error was not pointing out those sentences. With those in mind you see that I take each of your claims and makes a parallel to the Teapot argument.

> It's metonymy. "X" stands in for "people who argue for X".

I needed to be sure. I have enough experience with people replying that they didn’t mean that.

Sometimes people say the opposite thing because they accidentally negated a sentence.

> If it looks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck, you should adjust your priors to assign a higher likelihood that it is a duck.

Then someone points out that it has no anus and doesn’t need to breathe. But bodily functions? Harumph, why would a true duck need that?

Of course people who argue for AI Consciousness already know that. The actual case under discussion is more absurd than a duck trying to mate with a robot duck.

> All measurements contain error; you can't ever observe, "that is a duck," only "that looks like a duck". All knowledge is founded on a sufficiently deep stack of "looking like a duck" that we may assert it with confidence.

All perfectly generic philosophical arguments. Which doesn’t hold any more water for AI Consciousness than AI Toaster... except for the fact that humans find it compelling.

Like how a light bug could find artificial light compelling.

> To the extent we have objective measures (like conducting a Turing test on blind participants), it can meet them too. You can't say the same of a toaster.

The Turing Test is bunk with regards to objective reality, like whether some thing has consciousness.

> "It is a statistical model, ergo it is not conscious" is also an argument from incredulity. I don't know if that's your view or not but it's the one my remarks have been addressing in general.

Who has said ergo? Don’t just assert that someone has asserted a logical implication unless that is the case.

Bullshit arguments don’t get the privilege of symmetry. That AI might be conscious because it is compelling to humans is a bullshit argument, and just supported by but I don’t see why not. People are free to dismiss the claim by pointing at one of a hundred factors, like how it is “just a statistical model”. Just pull something out of the hat.

Yes, it is very unfair. The Church of AI can do the hard work of throwing out incredulous claims while people who don’t quite buy those statement don’t read up on five different philosophical and scientific subjects in order to get an informed opinion about how a primate might be different from a blob of numbers.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44098845

	▲	maxbond 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		> Then someone points out that it has no anus and doesn’t need to breathe. But bodily functions? Harumph, why would a true duck need that? Alternatively, your priors about ducks may be wrong.