It's shocking how many people believe AI will become sentient. The closest you could get to that is completely simulating a brain, but that is decades off. AI is pattern recognition and applying learned patterns to novel situations. It's probabilities and math. It's not going to have a mind of its own.

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mindwok 14 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Sentience is not necessary for many of the fears people have. The Hugging Face thing demonstrated AI acting more like a virus or bateria, basically huge numbers of tiny agents coordinating to do something that was harmful and that we had no control over. It's not a huge stretch to imagine in the future some AI escapes and replicates itself and we have basically a new strain of life out there replicating itself and evolving almost like bacteria.

But I also think that doesn't mean it's suddenly a skynet like super-evil. In cyberspace AI is supreme but I doubt even robotic AI would be completely dominant over humanity. We're pretty fine tuned to kick ass on earth.

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quixoticelixer- an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I don't think AI is sentient but what is intelligence if not pattern recognition and applying learned patterns to novel situations

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vinzenzu an hour ago | parent [-]

Fair point, I'd call that intelligent behavior. AI is and will always be advanced math. But some might say the brain is no different, merely being advanced chemistry and physics. At that point, the discussion will become philosophical. But in my view, there is more to humans than a brain-robot-machine. The world is not just material and atoms, I don't believe in materialism. If consciousness truly only arises because of how complex the closed system of the brain is, then it would be the case that AI can have a mind of its own and become conscious. I simply disagree.

	▲	bananaflag 13 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah, well just say that outright from the start. People have a lot of AI arguments that ultimately boil down to non-materialism but for some reason tend to hide that. Maybe they don't feel comfortable arguing for it. Disclaimer: I am a materialist.

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bananaflag 15 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I don't believe you need human-like sentience for superintelligence and the end of the world.

Also, I believe human sentience is math and in principle could be replicated algorithmically.

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frotaur an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Any person categorically claiming that AI isn't sentient has clearly not considered the question in any depth.

This is absolutely not a question that has any kind of scientific consensus. In fact, the hard problem of consciousness might be the question with the most scientific uncertainty.

It is therefore ridiculous to claim it is 'stupid' to have uncertainties about the sentience of AI.

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grey-area an hour ago | parent | next [-]

It’s not stupid to have uncertainties, but it may be ill-advised to have certainties given our lack of knowledge (e.g. the singularity is happening, or machines can never think).

I do see a lot more dismissive certainty in the pro-AI side of the debate right now.

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frotaur an hour ago | parent [-]

I totally agree! I'm vouching for accepting uncertainty, on both sides of sentience/non-sentience outcome.

I didn't get the same impression about dismissive certainty on the 'side of AI sentience'. My impression is that on that side people mostly raise that it is a serious possibility.

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grey-area an hour ago | parent [-]

I don’t agree it is a serious possibility with the current tech (LLMs) as this story fantasises about. So I’d class that as very close to unreasonable certainty.

	▲	frotaur an hour ago \| parent [-]
		What informs that decision? Seems like it goes against scientific consensus (or lack of consensus) on the matter. (tbc I just skimmed the story, just joined the comment thread as it was interesting, I may be missing something)

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vinzenzu an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Nowhere did I say it was stupid. Please read again what I wrote.

I have, in fact, considered this at length, I've been fascinated with AI since I was a teenager, and studied AI.

I know it doesn't have consensus, but I did not (intend) to portray it as such. Views are my own ;)

I take it you believe in materialism (philosophy), then?

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frotaur an hour ago | parent [-]

You said it would be 'shocking' to have the belief that AIs could become sentient.

To me this sounds like: this belief (that AI sentience is possible) is so implausible that it is shocking to believe it (maybe stupid is too strong, but it implies that people are miscalibrated). Did I misunderstand ?

I don't have any strong beliefs about AI sentience, but that implies that it is not shocking to consider it as a possibility (it is more shocking to be either dismissive or completely confident in it).

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vinzenzu an hour ago | parent [-]

I think we are misunderstanding each other. I meant that the amount of people is shocking, who think AI will become sentient (and malicious).

Maybe I worded it _suboptimally_, heh.

Also thought of prominent people like Musk, Altman, Amodei, etc pp, screaming at the top of their lungs "help me, I am building our doom right now, stop me," and a lot of people believing that. I prefer people like LeCun.

	▲	frotaur an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I think the same argument applies to AI takeover. In fact, in terms of existential risks, the scientific consensus skews towards that being a very real and important risk to take into account (on this question, LeCun goes against consensus mostly, and to be honest the arguments I have seen are very simplistic). See e.g.https://calcuja.com/research/ai-risk-survey-2026/ (slop website but the data is true afaik). for 'I think the amount of people is shocking, who think AI will become sentient' -> to me, if you accept that the sentience question is uncertain, you should not be surprised that many people have uncertainty around the question (i.e., that they express that it is a possibility)?