A scary chat with ChatGPT about latest NDE account in NDE thread

I'm empathetic towards you on this sbu and wish nothing less for you than for this crisis to subside.  While its likely not any comfort, it is pretty clear that most of us here aren't seeing this connection that is causing you such distress.  This technology feels nothing at all like consciousness to me.  It feels completely artificial and "man-made"; the latter making it even harder for me to get excited about since we ('man') don't even know what consciousness is.

Hang in there.

Thank you for your understanding. It’s highly appreciated. You are spot on.

It does not have any external sensory input. It does not have a nervous system which activity is mediated by neurotransmitters like dopamine. Of course it can’t be compared to anything lile a human continous experiences of all this stimuli. 

I’m not addressing any first-person experience of what it means to be a human here. My posts are about the ‘mental capabilities’ that can be assesed from the third person perspective, like in the chinese box experiment.

Well then yes, it is very good at taking stuff humans have written and pretending to have produced an original response.

Though even that is thanks to humans helping train the program.

It's a very clever magic trick that fakes thought.

Well then yes, it is very good at taking stuff humans have written and pretending to have produced an original response.

Though even that is thanks to humans helping train the program.

It's a very clever magic trick that fakes thought.

Interestingly that you use the term “ magic trick” about this.

Interestingly that you use the term “ magic trick” about this.

Most succinct, accurate term to describe what's happening.

As many as 300 million full-time jobs around the world could be automated in some way by the newest wave of artificial intelligence that has spawned platforms like ChatGPT, according to Goldman Sachs economists.
They predicted in a report Sunday that 18% of work globally could be computerized, with the effects felt more deeply in advanced economies than emerging markets.

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/29/tech/...index.html

[Ninshub]

Yes I’m making an attempt at playing the ‘devils advocate’ here. Until 2 months ago I would have sworn that a ‘machine’ with the capabilities of chatGPT couldn’t be built. Now I’m wondering where this is going to end. I’m paying for premium access to the 4.0  version and is being amazed every day by it’s capabilities within programming and math solving (and I have an university degree in this). I have no doubt it will surpass my abilities in the 5.0 version. It causes me a great spiritual crisis.

I'm just curious sbu (and feel free to ignore if you're not interested), but can you define what exactly is the crisis you experience when confronting this development? (Is it the fact that it will surpass your abilities, and if so in what way is that a crisis for you? E.g. does it make you feel a certain way, or is it thinking about certain potential consequences?) Can you explain also the meaning of the word "spiritual" in this context?

I’m starting to believe that the way chatGPT has ‘learned’ by processing everything on the Internet mirrors how the human mind learns from its environment from inception until self-awareness ‘happens’ at about 2 years of age.

The "emergence" of the sense of self and when it happens is a problematic thing without a universal agreement.
I also lean towards the skeptical side, but for me, while AI lacks certain limits of biological organisms, this alone doesn't make a compelling case for computational minds. (Eliminative materialist positions, such as Graziano's AST, argue that consciousness being "ethereal and mysterious" advances their views because it's a imperfection of this cognitive process according to them however.)

I'm just curious sbu (and feel free to ignore if you're not interested), but can you define what exactly is the crisis you experience when confronting this development? (Is it the fact that it will surpass your abilities, and if so in what way is that a crisis for you? E.g. does it make you feel a certain way, or is it thinking about certain potential consequences?) Can you explain also the meaning of the word "spiritual" in this context?

It's my livelihood that's at stake here. It's the only thing I'm good at (I'm not claiming to be a Linus Torsvald superstar, understand me right). The prospect of being replaced by a machine causes me a lot of trouble. It's in my core that the humans ability of reasoning is beyond a machines. I no longer think that's the case even though the AI is not quite there yet, I sense it's close. So do a lot of industry leaders like Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak. You might argue it only simulates reasoning, but from the third person perspective it will appear the same.

[Ninshub]

I understand and empathize with the angst at the prospect of losing your livelihood.

Leaving the more broadly existential aside for a moment, I do think the emergence of this type of technology is likely to be THE most disruptive in human history.  Will make the industrial revolution a blip on the radar by comparison.

It could also be an incredible boon to humanity but I fear our more base instincts (selfishness, greed, etc) will drive things at the start.

I've always wondered what a world with the following might look like:

• Plentiful, renewable, accessible-to-all energy
  
• Direct, individual, personal access to human ingenuity
  

We don't have the first just yet but I think we'll get there; just a matter of time in my view.  The latter we're seeing a preview of via the tech we're talking about here.  This would be a wholly new form of existence for human beings; again unlike anything in history to my view.