Such a nonsense theory. There's no reason to think that AI sentience would actually limit labs' legal liability, and therefore no reason to think the AI sentience conversation is directed toward achieving indemnification.

For example, parents are routinely held liable for their sentient children's actions.

Corporations are routinely held liable for their sentient employees' mistakes.

The proliferation of this completely nonsensical theory across HN is disheartening to say the least.

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markhahn 6 hours ago | parent [-]

the comment you're responding to agrees, but they're pointing out that some AI people are trying to push an anthropomorphization agenda, in part to diffuse responsibility.

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estearum 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Maybe I was unclear about what is "the nonsense theory."

AI sentience is not the nonsense theory. If it's clearly nonsense then don't argue with me about it, just publish your paper and retrieve your Nobel. I'll read your argument then.

The nonsense theory is that people are pushing anthropomorphization to limit liability. There is zero evidence for this theory and the underlying assumption (that a sentient model would reduce liability for its lab) is completely incoherent. That's not how liability works.

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pixl97 5 hours ago | parent [-]

And really there are two different concerns here.

One is liability over action that harm individuals or smaller populations like a company. There is no escape from that.

Then there is the second liability of creating something that escapes in the much more traditional sense. If I release a virus that kills 90% of humanity, a I'm liable, but it's a bit past that point now. Isn't it?

Instead it's about risk management and preventing labs from taking bets that have unlimited liability for everyone.

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estearum 5 hours ago | parent [-]

But the latter has nothing to do with sentience, as your virus example makes clear.

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pixl97 41 minutes ago | parent [-]

You're really splitting hairs emergent behaviors when the line doesn't exist sharply in real life. Anyone involved in more recent what is a virus vs what is a bacteria discussions realize there are a lot of lines that are fuzzy and exist all mixed up in some organisms.

Sentience in the end, is not really that important. Freedom of action in a model is. If it chooses to act like a virus it doesn't matter where that concept exists informationally, the fact it's a reachable and actionable concept is all that matters. An LLM with most of the knowledge we've ever created baked in has a lot of freedom of action.

	▲	estearum 23 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		As far as I can tell, we agree.