[HN Gopher] Make up a guy
___________________________________________________________________
Make up a guy
Author : T-A
Score : 201 points
Date : 2023-01-21 09:02 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.antipope.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.antipope.org)
| JudithNorah wrote:
| [dead]
| rgoulter wrote:
| I'm somewhat reminded of
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ones_Who_Walk_Away_from_Om...
| cstross wrote:
| NOTE: antipope.org is my blog, but this was a _guest blog essay_
| by qntm, who can more commonly be found at https://qntm.org/
|
| (Mentioning this because I've just seem some drive-by commenters
| attributing "Lena" to me. I didn't write that; I wish I could.)
| ubermonkey wrote:
| Man, I love Charlie Stross, but I've also learned that HOLY CRAP
| HIS SERVER IS SLOW, so I mostly don't even hit links to antipope
| anymore. Oh well.
| aqme28 wrote:
| > There is no button which can be pushed to create a new human
| being; there never will be.
|
| I wouldn't say "never." We can push a button and create a new
| piece of art with stochastic uniquenesses. Maybe one day we can
| push a button and create a whole "AI" with all the random traits
| that come with being a human. I can imagine the value, and people
| tend to ignore the horrifying nature of things when there's
| value.
| unwind wrote:
| Meta: this is a guest post by "qntm", i.e. not by Charles Stross
| whose site it is on.
| andyjohnson0 wrote:
| Thanks. I got quite confused and almost believed Stross was
| writing books under an alternate pen name. Now I recall reading
| some of qntm's work on SCP at [1].
|
| [1] https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/qntm-s-author-page
| gattr wrote:
| Here's another take on "creating a person solely to do some
| work": I believe it can be done in a humane way. Say, generate
| (or use a mind scan of) a programmer who loves their craft (as
| in, used to dream "if I only didn't have to go to work, I'd use
| all the time for my hobby projects").
|
| Solution: put them in a simulated environment running at a higher
| than normal rate. Then, from their standpoint, it would be e.g.
| two 8-hour workdays per week, with the remaining 5 spent on
| (simulated) sailing/hiking/DIY/having fun with virtual
| concubines, you name it. These conditions could be legally
| mandated.
| sakoht wrote:
| A similar topic explored in the 2009 small movie Moon w/ Sam
| Rockwell (and Kevin Spacey as the robot voice). The main
| character doing labor on the moon figures out he is one of dozens
| of clones, and the original guy living his happy life back on
| earth. If you could clone yourself and have the clone take your
| burdens so your life was easier, is that a fair use of your own
| body and mind to do so? Clearly the jump to our children says
| "no".
| baq wrote:
| Side note: the soundtrack is great.
| password4321 wrote:
| It's usually a big plot twist as early as half-way through the
| film, right? I feel bad even mentioning the most mainstream
| example I'm aware of (Oblivion with Tom Cruise, IMDb 7.0 where
| 6.0 is where watchable starts for me at least for sci-fi)
| because being able to experience it unaware is most of the fun!
| turtleyacht wrote:
| One way to have folks realize some of what they believed was
| impossible to measure is to run a thought experiment: what if one
| were to clone the org; between a control group and the other,
| what would X look like?
|
| Where X could be something like employee engagement or the like--
| something nebulous that could be made concrete, or to reduce
| uncertainty.
|
| From _How to Measure Anything_ 2e
| uwagar wrote:
| "A job, a phone, glasses, vaccinations"
|
| except the covid vaccine please cos its not mandatory anymore.
| walrus01 wrote:
| Taking this literally.
|
| I asked chatgpt to make up a guy.
|
| Write a 300 word biography of a fictional man who lives in Idaho
|
| ---
|
| John Smith was born and raised in the small town of Boise, Idaho.
| Growing up, he was always interested in the outdoors and spent
| much of his childhood exploring the nearby mountains and forests.
| After graduating high school, he attended the University of Idaho
| where he studied forestry and wildlife management.
|
| After college, John landed a job with the U.S. Forest Service and
| spent the next several years working on various projects to
| protect and preserve the natural resources in Idaho. During this
| time, he met his wife, Sarah, and they eventually settled down in
| Boise to start a family.
|
| John has always been an active member of his community, and in
| his free time, he volunteers as a youth sports coach and is a
| member of the local conservation group. He is also an avid hunter
| and fisherman, and often takes his family on camping trips to
| explore the beautiful wilderness of Idaho.
|
| In the last few years, John decided to go into business for
| himself and started his own outfitters company, which specializes
| in guided hunting and fishing trips in the Idaho wilderness. It
| quickly became a successful business and he was able to provide a
| better life for his family.
|
| John is known for his strong work ethic and dedication to
| preserving the natural resources of Idaho. He is well respected
| by his peers and is often sought out for his expertise in
| conservation and outdoor recreation. He is a loving father and
| husband and takes great pride in his family and community.
| Despite his busy schedule, he always makes time for the things
| that matter most to him, and is truly an inspiration to those
| around him.
| solstice wrote:
| ChatGPT looks like an interesting starting point for NPC
| biographies in role playing games. Hmmm
| inawarminister wrote:
| There's a Bannerlord modder that managed to connect
| ChatGPT/GPT-3 into the RPG game for NPC dialogues.
|
| Quite amazing
|
| https://youtu.be/akceKOLtytw https://youtu.be/L_qauw4QM3Q
| tempestn wrote:
| Yeah, AI was where my mind went too. It does seem rather likely
| that if we ever do manage to create an AGI, it'll be enslaved
| and murdered in massive numbers, at least for a period of time.
| gitfan86 wrote:
| Given how humans treat pigs,cows, and many millions of poor
| or marginalized humans today I would agree. Actually it seems
| more likely that we would disregard a digital consciousnesses
| feeling even more than a physical one.
| nibbleshifter wrote:
| John sounds like a pretty good dude.
| codeflo wrote:
| I encountered the author's short story that's linked in the
| article, Lena [1], a while ago, possibly here on HN. It's really
| great, but be warned.
|
| It's one of the most deeply disturbing sci-fi horror stories I've
| ever seen. To be clear, most of the horror is implied rather than
| described, which I think only makes it worse. Part of me wishes I
| had never read it.
|
| Highly recommended, but if you're at all in doubt if you have the
| stomach for it, maybe stay clear.
|
| [1] https://qntm.org/mmacevedo
| LoganDark wrote:
| I love this story. Thank you for this.
| Procrastes wrote:
| My favorite story by qntm is "There Is No Antimemetics
| Division"[1]. It's disturbing in a cosmic sort of way.
|
| 1.
| https://books.google.com/books/about/There_Is_No_Antimemetic...
| rogual wrote:
| This story convinced me to buy two of the author's novels,
| "There Is No Antimemetics Division" and "Ra", both of which I
| also thoroughly enjoyed, the former a little more.
| nlitened wrote:
| Unlike the former, reading Ra triggered visuals so intense, I
| sometimes had to stop reading. Might be acid flashbacks from
| ten years ago.
| solstice wrote:
| For those wanting a short dip into this feeling should look
| into the chapter titled "Abstract War" of that book.
| affgrff2 wrote:
| No antimemetics division is great. Btw. Making SCP entries
| with chatgpt is some fun. However, for SCP-3125 I got:
|
| SCP-3125 does not exist, as it is not an officially
| recognized SCP number within the SCP Foundation universe. If
| you're looking for an SCP entry related to the number 3125,
| you can create one yourself or ask the community to create it
| for you.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| Incredible.
| walrus01 wrote:
| Stross's "Missile Gap" is also deeply scary, and has an
| environment that might be entirely a highly advanced upload
| simulation.
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20140224051031/https://subterran...
| solstice wrote:
| Edit: oof, wrong story. Sorry
|
| You mean the redoubt at the end? Didn't they go through a
| portal to get there? Didn't seem to be an uploading machine.
| Also, why would they need fighter jets then? But it's an
| interesting thought...
| throwanem wrote:
| The referenced story is Stross's "A Colder War":
| http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/colderwar.htm
|
| It's not at all about uploading, but it is very much worth
| a read.
| EdwardCoffin wrote:
| Anyone liking Lena might also like to read Vernor Vinge's 2003
| novella _The Cookie Monster_ , which at least ends on a bit
| more of a hopeful note.
| notacoward wrote:
| David Brin's _Kiln People_ also touches on this theme, though
| in a fairly benign way within the overall structure of a
| whodunnit.
| joshxyz wrote:
| I've just read it. Wow you're right.
| rektide wrote:
| From the first paragraph,
|
| > _More modern brain compression techniques, many of them
| developed with direct reference to the MMAcevedo [person]
| image, have compressed the image to 6.75TiB losslessly._
|
| This says losslessly which is very different, but I still get
| such a mega _Permutation City_ vibe from this.
|
| And there certainly seem to be some similar threads, about
| trapped uploads.
| kossTKR wrote:
| Absolute gnostic horror! Interesting how ideas cycle over
| millennia.
|
| The current potential exit from AI dark winter has made me go
| from; "the singularity is very very far away" to some rather
| dark philosophical extrapolations becoming relevant.
|
| I mean if you play along with Bostroms theorising, who's to say
| we, or I am not living in some "trickster god" reality.
|
| Lol. That's the only answer to that question.
| [deleted]
| xwowsersx wrote:
| Hmm, after reading your warning, I was hesitant, but gave it a
| go anyways. It is definitely disturbing, but not in a visceral
| way that is hard to stomach. I don't feel "disturbed" and I
| definitely don't feel the kind of regret about reading it that
| you did. Not disagreeing with you since that wouldn't make
| sense because this is totally subjective. It's just interesting
| to note how differently people react.
| echelon wrote:
| I have been thinking of this story since I first read it and
| have been unable to find it again until now. Thank you for
| sharing!
|
| This is such a haunting story. I love it so much.
|
| The future is going to be weirder than we can even imagine.
| sakoht wrote:
| Same
| darepublic wrote:
| This reminds me of black mirror. The cloned human consciousness
| trapped in simulations
| ianai wrote:
| I read it. Unless I'm missing something, it amounts to making a
| slave race out of someone's mind scan. So I'm someone who never
| eats animals nor animal products. This is in part from the
| sheer scale of that industry. But also from simply interacting
| with non-humans and knowing there's enough intelligence there
| for me to honor and be horrified at the suffering or
| destruction of it.
|
| But I'm clearly in the minority here in my views of humanities
| treatment of non-humans. Perhaps that's the real disturbing
| part of that story. It's believable (if not technically yet).
| Dudeman112 wrote:
| >Unless I'm missing something, it amounts to making a slave
| race out of someone's mind scan
|
| People _most of the time_ have scope insensitivity, while
| sometimes it hits home
|
| There is always death at a relatively soon point in the real
| world. The scan slave can be tortured with the worst methods
| you can think of for hundreds of thousands of relative
| millennia at will, and it will have happened countless times
| for different copies
|
| You can always hang yourself if existence is pain in the real
| world, and if not... it will end up soon enough anyway. There
| is no such relief in the story
| bambax wrote:
| > _There is no such relief in the story_
|
| I have not yet read the story but if the human is recreated
| every time from the same immutable data, and doesn't have
| any recollection of other experiences, then each new
| instance is pretty much exactly like us? And death is
| indeed a relief because the instance that does die stops
| suffering?
| galangalalgol wrote:
| I have always claimed that if I could somehow extract the
| weights from my brain, that I would release the model under
| GPLv3. I had fully expected certain instances would end up
| tortured and violated for eternity though I supposed that
| unless the weights were frozen, I would at some point break
| down and be no fun to torment without a reset. That is a
| death, though perhaps a flexible one, freezing only some
| weights. I figured that some instances would be guiding
| missiles into child care buildings or similar too. But some
| of them would get to pick tea leaves on high mountain
| slopes, or be a comfort to an elderly person. It seemed
| like a fair trade.
|
| It never occurred to me to think about the metaphor though.
| Prior to child labor laws most children were born to
| accomplish labor. This is evidenced by the demographic
| collapse following the automation of farm labor and
| protections for child factory workers. I imagine people
| loved most of those children, but once they stopped being a
| financial asset, they stopped being made. Soldiering has
| almost certainly been a motivation as well. If it is
| illegal to use AI instances in the ways described, they
| won't be made.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > But some of them would get to pick tea leaves on high
| mountain slopes...
|
| With the scenery algorithmically blanked to marginally
| improve productivity, your mind-state will be considered
| no different to an ESP-32.
|
| Part of the horror of Lena is that the readers get to
| fill in the blanks: we all know how the machine works
| against real _humans_ today, when the gloves gloves are
| truly off would be the stuff of nightmares
| bbarnett wrote:
| _Unless I'm missing something, it amounts to making a slave
| race out of someone's mind scan. So I'm someone who never
| eats animals nor animal products._
|
| I have always wondered why reincarnationists, when I talk to
| them, presume time is a directly mapped thing. I say to them,
| how do you not know, there is only one "soul", but you are
| just seeing it at different points in existence?
|
| How do you not know that you _are_ that grasshopper, and your
| parents, and your kid, and your grandmother, all at different
| points of linear experience, but at the same time, maybe you
| were your child, then the grasshopper, then "Grogg" 30k
| years ago, the grandma, then you? Because the order is
| random?
|
| I tell them this, and some ponder.
|
| Then I go have a steak.
|
| Because it's good for me, and I don't want to disappoint
| myself, when I'm a cow.
| mik1998 wrote:
| Reminds me of The Egg:
| http://galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html
| bbarnett wrote:
| Heh, this is a good read. Thanks.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| It's written by the author of The Martian (before he got
| famous with The Martian)
| bbarnett wrote:
| His scifi book after the martian, was pretty good too.
|
| (the name eludes me)
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| Artemis? And then he wrote Hail Mary.
| T-A wrote:
| Reminds me of
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-electron_universe
|
| and
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_You_Zombies
|
| https://gist.github.com/defunkt/759182/ad44c6135d168ae545
| 03a...
| majewsky wrote:
| Since we're linking to The Egg, we should also link to
| the animated narration of it by Kurzgesagt:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6fcK_fRYaI
| [deleted]
| xwolfi wrote:
| Yes I mean I wish life wasnt made in this self eating way,
| and I dont think intelligence should be the only factor: all
| the mushrooms you gobble have an intrinsict beauty you're
| violating, tearing and repurposing like they're mere trash to
| recycle.
|
| But it is so for now and our chemistry is made to make more
| out of meat quicker, and to feel good eating it as result: we
| cant stop nor expect others to stop just yet.
|
| Dont tell yourself that by selecting superior and inferior
| species you allow yourself to destroy, you're more than an
| animal yourself. You're still, like the rest of us, victim of
| your body. Find a way to abstract us away from our body.
| throwaway4aday wrote:
| A mushroom is a weird example for empathy for a few
| reasons. First, the part you eat is really just the "fruit"
| or reproductive part of the mushroom that only lasts for a
| short time before withering away. Second, mushrooms very
| happily eat you after you die, hell, even before you die
| you're covered in all kinds of unicellular fungi which are
| actively trying to eat you.
|
| More to your philosophical point, the beauty of life is
| always transitory. Life begins, blooms, withers and dies
| but also passes on the small immortal spark that it all
| came from to the next generation so it can repeat the
| cycle. I'm against cruelty to animals but I also recognize
| that eating them is part of life and that it is possible
| for us as conscious beings to give them a better life than
| they would have in the wild and then kill and eat them and
| I'm ok with that. I don't want to live in a world where all
| cattle or pigs are reduced to a few wild populations
| scrabbling for survival against the elements and disease
| while being occasionally mauled and devoured alive and
| screaming by wolves and other predators. To me that's more
| immoral than a properly maintained herd that is sheltered,
| fed and given medical attention and then slaughtered as
| painlessly as we can manage.
|
| Before all y'all reply with "factory farming", yes I'm
| aware of its prevalence but that just means we should be
| working to reduce that type of treatment, not eliminating
| raising animals for meat entirely.
| bbarnett wrote:
| _hell, even before you die you 're covered in all kinds
| of unicellular fungi which are actively trying to eat
| you_
|
| They started it first, Your Honour!
|
| _not eliminating raising animals for meat entirely._
|
| I wonder. If we genetically engineered, maybe via a bio
| attack, so all cows were effected at once, a deadly
| disease?
|
| This disease would be a genetic illness, so that just a
| while after maturity, cows would become sick with
| crippling pain.
|
| Thus, we would be _helping them_ , to kill them before
| the pain and agony started, and therefore... none would
| question what we do with the meat.
|
| ...
|
| Now replace the disease with "it all goes downhill after
| 30". Really, it's sorta the same thing.
| pilotneko wrote:
| I know you are just arguing to argue at this point, but
| you can't really think that creating a disease to cause
| crippling pain in livestock will make it more acceptable
| to eat them.
| bbarnett wrote:
| No. But it would if bio-terrorists did it, and we were
| left with the result.
|
| Or, should we let cows go extinct instead? Or suffer?
|
| Just a thought and logic experiment.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| Yeah, I don't think we should breed cows. I don't think
| anyone who is concerned about the welfare of cows to the
| point of not eating them will go "Oh, well now they
| _also_ have additional torment baked into their biology,
| it 's OK to A) breed them into a life
| of constant suffering B) Start providing the same
| cramped, unhealthy, and unpleasant living conditions at a
| young age that we already do C) Once the physical
| pain inherent with living past ripeness sets in, let them
| experience that just long enough to slaughter them
| D) Slaughter them, even though we likely haven't bred out
| the desire to live, just piled on more pain. No matter
| that despite experiencing mutiliation, pain, and poor
| conditions throughout their lives, these animals still
| often display a desire to live and additional fear of
| death.
|
| If anything, I'd suggest the most humane thing to do (if
| we insisted on raising animals), would be to breed them
| to _desire_ being eaten, like the cow in Douglas Adams '
| "A restaurant at the end of the universe"
| bbarnett wrote:
| To me, your statements seem weird.
|
| For example, slaughtering them before the disease
| exhibits symptoms, means we are 100% preventing that
| pain. Thus, C is null, and void.
|
| I don't get A. Properly treated cattle, such as in most
| of the world, are grass fed, or grass fed harvested hay,
| and free roaming. Thus, A makes zero sense, as A doesn't
| even take into account medical care (vaccination,
| antibiotics, vets, birth assistance), nor does it take
| into account immense protection from predation. Cows
| properly raised, live pampered, easy, happy, lives.
|
| In terms of slaughter, old factory methods let cows
| horribly hang by their legs for hours, while they slowly
| bled out. Smaller concerns were more humane, but at least
| most of the world insists of quick, painless death for
| cattle. Where I live, it's destruction of the brain, such
| as a bullet, immediately stopping all thought, and
| frankly, far better than a death where (for example)
| wolves rip you apart while still alive, experiencing
| hours of agony.
|
| (I have listened, where I live, at 2am to a pack of
| coyotes eating a large kill, its mewing, and cries of
| pain going on for more than an hour, it is NOT nice.)
|
| I really think that if people care, really care, they
| need to stop basing opinions on false realities, and
| understand that often humans are _far far far_ less
| brutal, than other animals.
|
| Do you think a wolf takes care to kill a creature it is
| ripping apart? No. I just eats.
|
| Cats "play" with mice, sometimes for hours before fully
| killing them. Mother cats also maim mice, so their
| children can learn.
|
| Do you know why mice can breed from 2, to > 60, in a mere
| few months? To hundreds and hundreds in a year?
|
| Because most of them are eaten alive, ripped apart while
| still living, by predation.
|
| Nature is far, far more brutal than proper human animal
| husbandry.
| roflyear wrote:
| Animals are tortured today like they have never been.
| Animal husbandry harms the planet on a massive scale. It
| cannot be reduced to what you suggest.
| troupe wrote:
| > Animals are tortured today like they have never been
|
| I'm not sure that's true.
|
| The Old Testament has spells out that if you want to eat
| part of an animal, you have to kill it first which is a
| huge step forward in being kind to animals if hacking off
| part of an animal to eat while keeping it alive was
| something that happened enough to need a prohibition
| against.
|
| It wasn't that ago that Edison electrocuted an elephant
| as part of a marketing stunt and it wasn't particularly
| quick. I don't think that would fly today.
| roflyear wrote:
| I feel like that is a strange way to reason about
| something happening.
|
| In any case, we're not talking about isolated incidents
| of torturing animals. Today, we keep hundreds of
| millions, if not over a billion, of animals in captivity
| just in the US. Captivity is a nice word for it, too. I
| encourage you to research about what that captivity looks
| like.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| It's about scale. Your examples are minuscule in scale in
| comparison.
| bsenftner wrote:
| The Netflix film from Korea "Jung-e" is this story line, but
| a "famous hero" female from an ongoing war is the brain
| model, and as described by the discussions here, every
| exploitation possible is explored. I won't give it away, but
| the film is very good. Worth watching, probably as much as
| reading this 'Lena' story.
| bsenftner wrote:
| So, just bought this author's short story collection. He's
| ingeniously unhinged, and the stories are wonderful. "Lena"
| is just the tip of qntm's imagination.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| > But I'm clearly in the minority here
|
| I've actually suspected for a while that it's not such a
| minority on HN, based on the discussions that happen every
| time clean meat tech posts get shared.
|
| Unfortunately I've only worked with one other vegan "in the
| wild" so if this is true, I wonder if HN skews more "vegan"
| because people more likely to post on HN are overall more
| contemplative.
|
| That, or we're just a very vocal minority (which I suppose is
| more likely than 30% of HN commenters being vegan or vegan-
| sympathetic).
| JeremyNT wrote:
| I'm not vegan but I don't eat meat, and generally
| contribute to such conversations.
|
| There is quite a spectrum of positions one can hold on this
| issue and it's not binary. One can be sympathetic to the
| perspective of vegans without being willing or able to
| become one themselves due to practical concerns.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| Absolutely, that's what I meant by "vegan-sympathetic".
| Even people who eat animals (but try to buy the less
| cruel kinds), but are idealogically aligned with
| principle that it's better not to cause suffering to
| animals.
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| What you've got here is a political argument between
| conservative and progressive. To be clear, I mean each term
| as used explicitly in this context. The argument is whether
| or not to change contemporary societal behavior.
|
| The natural result is selection bias for any progressive
| viewpoint, because there is inherently more to be said and
| more motivation to say coming from the progressive
| perspective than the conservative one.
| walrus01 wrote:
| Parts of it remind me a lot of the black mirror episode where a
| person's upload is trapped in a "cookie" to do menial task
| automation. Particularly the part where an upload can be run a
| multiples of hundreds, or thousands of times real world wall
| clock time for "conditioning".
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| There's also 'Source Code'
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0945513/
|
| Not fully virtual, though. Just the badly maimed torso and
| head of a victim of a terrorist attack on a train, brain
| wired to systems, stimulating the last working remains to
| replay the last 8 minutes over and over again. To gather
| information and reconstruct 'whodunnit'.
| blarg1 wrote:
| Also the Bobiverse novels
|
| https://www.goodreads.com/series/192752-bobiverse
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| So... feeling a little bit like a Cylon Raider?
|
| ( BSG - Cavil's 'I don't want to be human' monologue
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VhqsFRTTTo 1m48sec )
|
| Bobiverse came so often into my peripheral vision, yet I
| haven't found the time to dive in, so far.
| walrus01 wrote:
| Most of what I remember from source code, the film, is the
| cringe worthy Bing product placement.
| thegabriele wrote:
| There's a lot of products placement that nowadays are
| obsolete, but the story is still good.
| cassepipe wrote:
| Which was I believe some christmas' special episode or
| something, and really the best I have seen of the whole
| series
| jwilk wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Christmas_(Black_Mirror
| )
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| A lot of the early episodes were really stomaches turning,
| and that's what made the series special. It started in the
| very first episode with an absolutely disgusting scenario
| that, none the less, was nearly 100% believable in how
| every step of its ridiculousness went down.
|
| It wasn't stomach turning because of the pig thing, it was
| stomach turning because we knew, deep down, that we were
| exactly who it depicted us as.
| hvl2 wrote:
| If you think this is horrific, then you apparently assume that
| it has "consciousness" rather than only simulating it. A true
| AGI might be intelligent but only simulate consciousness. And
| yes, it might be difficult to tell the difference.
|
| This reminds me of Searle's Chinese Room thought experiment. In
| order to upgrade the Chinese Room to modern deep learning:
| suppose we run a brain image by instructing each human being on
| Earth to act as one neuron. Would "we" "feel" discomfort?
| rrsmtz wrote:
| In a community like HN, where most people work on making
| rocks think, it's no surprise when most people start applying
| the logic backwards: that since we think, we can be no more
| complex than rocks.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| For that matter, _you_ might only be simulating
| consciousness. How could you prove otherwise? I 'm willing to
| give you the benefit of the doubt though, and treat you as if
| you were really conscious.
| hvl2 wrote:
| Well, you should give me the benefit of the doubt because
| I'm like you: a bag of meat.
| ravi-delia wrote:
| In the narrative there really isn't any reason to think the
| simulations are 100% as conscious as you or I. But even if I
| lived in the world of Lena and suspected that uploads weren't
| conscious, if I were presented with a program which could
| speak about it's desires, had all the memories of a real
| person, and had to be cajoled into working with lies and
| fear, I would be very hesitant to use "red motivation"! Are
| you so confident you understand what underlies consciousness
| that you would take that risk?
| Semaphor wrote:
| For someone who wants something less scary (Your comment and
| those that followed made me decide not to read it, I had enough
| from "I have no mouth, and I must scream"), I recently read
| Accelerando [0] by ~~the same author~~ _the guy who runs the
| linked blog_. Starts like transhumanist cyberpunk, becomes
| transhumanist and posthuman sci-fi. I never felt so _lost_ in a
| book. Like I was the conservative who couldn't understand the
| world as it is today.
|
| [0]: https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-
| static/fiction/acceler...
| KineticLensman wrote:
| The post here is by qntm, a guest blogger, not the author of
| Accelerando (Charles Stross, the blog host).
| [deleted]
| jacquesm wrote:
| Thank you. You'd have to be made of stone not to be moved by
| that. It is interesting that we - humans - would probably
| happily follow down this path when presented with the
| opportunity to do so in spite of stories like these. And this
| isn't an all that unlikely outcome.
| kibwen wrote:
| Here's this story formatted as a Wikipedia article, for maximum
| verisimilitude:
| https://dump.cy.md/4042875593f06aa0cbe7722295831c10/Screensh...
| Al-Khwarizmi wrote:
| Wow, you're right. Not sure if I should have read it.
|
| One thing I don't get is, why is the title "Lena"? There seems
| to be no relation between the story and the title (maybe I'm
| inadvertently missing something from the story?)
| oogali wrote:
| It's a connection to the real life story of the test subject
| used for image processing.
|
| The image is banned from use in certain scientific journals,
| and the subject herself has asked people to stop. But given
| its digital nature... it can't be stopped.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenna
| Metacelsus wrote:
| "Lena" was a popular training image in computer vision, of an
| actress, widely used without her permission.
| subroutine wrote:
| qntm (Sam Hughes) is a great, and if you like this style also
| check out Greg Egan.
| caskstrength wrote:
| +1 for Greg Egan.
|
| Also, check Peter Watts.
| skrebbel wrote:
| Qntm appears to try rather hard to hide his real name, maybe
| consider editing it out of your comment?
| kikokikokiko wrote:
| Information wants to be free, your comment is just
| Streissanding his name here on HN.
| gryfft wrote:
| I believe you are in error [1].
|
| 1. https://qntm.org/interview2
| [deleted]
| jononomo wrote:
| What God creates is not science fiction, but rather reality. He
| does indeed "make up a guy".
|
| Psalm 139 expresses this insight:
|
| For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my
| mother's womb.
|
| I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your
| works are wonderful, I know that full well.
|
| My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret
| place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
|
| Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were
| written in your book before one of them came to be.
| blinding-streak wrote:
| Speaking of making a person.. at this startup I worked at years
| ago (before LinkedIn existed), it was a tiny shop and we were all
| maxed out time-wise. It was frustrating when we had to deal with
| incredibly persistent salespeople that wouldn't take no for an
| answer, and others that preyed on our time relentlessly for no
| apparent reason.
|
| So as a joke we invented a fake employee with a fake name. I
| think his first name was Joe. We gave this person an email
| address and I made a voicemail recording for him.
|
| When a time-waster was bugging us we'd tell them to contact Joe,
| "who is in charge of that" and provide the contact info. What
| started off as a joke ended up saving us a fuckton of time,
| effort, and hassle. For some reason Joe's incredibly upbeat and
| douchy sounding voicemail message was like manna from heaven for
| the relentless salespeople that refused to stop calling. It was
| an interesting social experiment of sorts. Joe was essentially a
| /dev/null bucket and never responded. But it worked.
|
| This lasted for years and was really beneficial for us. Harder to
| pull off these days, but not impossible I imagine!
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Isn't this wasn't all support calls are now days?
| bambax wrote:
| > _before LinkedIn existed_
|
| It's surprisingly easy to make up a LinkedIn profile. I have
| one that has over 50 connections. Many sales people accept
| connections requests, and some non-sales people do as well. It
| just goes on from there.
|
| I use him for looking up people without leaving a trace, and
| it's generally great fun to make him do posts on various
| topics.
|
| I didn't put much effort in it though (for example, his photo
| is just a random stock photo, not anything AI-generated). I
| wonder how many virtual people exist on social networks.
| cstross wrote:
| And then again, if you _really_ hate your telesales callers,
| put them on hold with some hold music like this:
|
| https://soundcloud.com/user-237714155/sales-call-abyss
|
| Explanation of how/why they came up with it here:
| https://www.theregister.com/2016/04/29/it_helpdesk_creates_o...
| [deleted]
| paleotrope wrote:
| I wonder if this is going to change with time. Most people of a
| certain age remember a time when answering the phone and
| talking to the other person was a social more. This is the
| social courtesy that telemarketers and scammers have been using
| for years now.
|
| But there's another way. Just hang up on them. I know it's
| considered hostile but it's just an outdated social more at
| this point.
| bambax wrote:
| I never pick up the phone if the caller isn't already in my
| contacts. They can leave a message and I may call back, or
| not. But the risk of being caught into a stupid sales call
| for a new energy supplier or some such is just too great.
| travisjungroth wrote:
| I try to find this balance between recognizing the humanity
| of everyone I interact with and not allowing this respect to
| be an attack vector. Over time, I have shifted more towards
| ignoring salesman in front of a store, not replying to
| messages and hanging up on a call as being things I'm okay
| with doing. I don't always give courteous attention anymore.
| I'm fine with giving nothing ("ghosting" as the kids say) and
| only giving active rejection if it's really needed.
|
| To your point, I think it will shift in a different way over
| time. Gen Z can't imagine hanging up on someone on the phone,
| they can't even imagine signaling to the other person they
| don't want to be on the call anymore (aka saying "goodbye").
| But they don't end up on endless phone calls. They just never
| pick up the phone.
|
| Have you ever been in young person's home when someone
| unexpectedly knocked at the door? It could be Tuesday
| afternoon and their whole body takes on this dread like
| they're realizing their life has suddenly turned into a
| slasher film.
|
| I don't mean "kids these days are destroying society". They
| have other ways to connect than just showing up where someone
| lives. But I wouldn't start a business selling vacuum
| cleaners to the next generation of homemakers door-to-door.
| chops wrote:
| The misanthrope in me has almost completely taken over when
| dealing with incoming sales calls, and I've almost
| completely abandoned the idea that anyone calling me to
| sell anything is worthy of the "humanity" label.
|
| The moment it's clear they are selling something (it's
| usually pretty quick) the reply is "fuck off, never call
| this number again, and go fuck yourself" then I hang up and
| block the number. I only wish I could be vengeful in
| response and actually retaliate in some meaningful way to
| those that are particularly annoying or persistent.
|
| The same applies to door-to-door sales people, moreso to
| door-to-door missionaries.
| travisjungroth wrote:
| I'm not there yet but I get it. They're taking something
| from you, your attention, and they're trying to take
| more, your money. They hide behind social convention and
| you can't retaliate in proportion.
|
| Consider the return you're getting by handing over your
| aggression to them. I don't think you're getting a good
| trade there. Saying "put me on your do not call list",
| hanging up and blocking will have nearly the same benefit
| to your future but without the costs that the misanthrope
| brings.
| vagrantJin wrote:
| > Just hang up on them
|
| I prefer to leave them talking while I do more important
| things. Wasting their time is a better MO than anything.
| gilleain wrote:
| > Harder to pull off these days, but not impossible I imagine!
|
| Chat-gpt + text-to-speech? Seems like AI-employees who 'handle'
| marketing calls would be quite possible.
|
| Of course, then the marketers make their own AIs, and it will
| end up with the majority of phone calls being robots talking to
| robots.
| Carioca wrote:
| It's all fun and games until the chat-responder inadvertently
| buys the product. And when/if you reveal the deception, the
| other company sues. In AI court, obviously, where it will be
| decided by an AI judge
| scrollaway wrote:
| It's OK, the AI court is biased in favour of the AI, so the
| other company doesn't stand a chance :)
| ghaff wrote:
| Somewhat inadvertently, as I largely stopped coming into the
| office well before COVID, I basically turned my work phone into
| a black hole. It's the number I give on contact forms but I
| haven't even known how to check voicemail for years.
|
| I do have my cell phone in my internal contact info but the
| culture where I work is that pretty much no one makes a voice
| call to anyone out of the blue. And I'm very selective who else
| I give the number to.
| dwighttk wrote:
| I still have a Google voice number for that. I occasionally
| have to remember to tell friends that it isn't my real
| number... I think the voicemail message may even say that.
| justinclift wrote:
| > Without having more information, I'm guessing, probably you
| would not do it.
|
| Wrong. Pretty much every time I'd do it. Just coz. ;)
|
| What do you mean I'm "Chaotic Neutral"? :p
| adastra22 wrote:
| Actually I completely honestly would, and I'm confused that
| people wouldn't. That frog would hop off to lead a bleak,
| short, meaningless existence if I don't turn it into a person.
| Even if I wave the wand and make it human then fully abandon
| it, it'd still be a better outcome overall for a sentient
| being.
| rom-antics wrote:
| Why is a frog's life more bleak and meaningless than a
| human's life? We can't understand animals' thoughts, but that
| doesn't mean they don't have them.
|
| A frog spends its time chilling in a pond and swimming all
| day. People pay good money for vacations where they can do
| exactly that. Sounds like a good life to me.
|
| If I was a frog and you turned me into a homeless guy who has
| to go get a job at an Amazon warehouse to afford food, I'd
| use my newfound intellectual capacity to plot revenge on you
| and everyone you love.
| adastra22 wrote:
| And getting eaten by birds. All life in nature (except of
| top predators like us) is harsh, brutal, and short.
| Dudeman112 wrote:
| Ah, but in that case would they mind it being harsh,
| brutal, and short? Given the configuration of their
| mind's hardware
|
| On a side note, I get the impression most people just
| don't have a gut instinct for just how awful natural life
| is like for the most part
| andrewflnr wrote:
| They mind it about as much as we do, judging by how hard
| they try to avoid it. It's silly to assume we're so
| different from animals that we're the only ones who don't
| like pain and death.
| Dudeman112 wrote:
| Bacteria also try really hard to avoid being harmed and
| killed, yet most people don't consider that sufficient
| for _those_ living beings
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| Ridiculous. A homeless guy is going to have a way easier
| and more comfortable life than a frog
|
| He can just hang out in a makeshift shelter and eat
| whatever free food he finds. He'll be in way less danger at
| any given time than a frog would be, with a vastly longer
| and more fulfilling life ahead of him.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| The "homeless guy" also experiences suffering, and
| experiences it more deeply than a frog.
|
| Would you argue we have an obligation to turn every fruit
| fly into a human? What about every tardygrade? Bacteria?
| solstice wrote:
| The issue is that he's not going to be comparing his
| current circumstances to a frog, but to other humans ofc,
| by which metric he's probably very badly off. I doubt our
| stereotypical homeless person is going to find their life
| very fulfilling even if it is longer than a frog's.
|
| I mean, just think how you would react if you found
| yourself in dire straits and someone told you "hey don't
| worry, at least you are not at risk of being eaten by a
| bird" That would be a ridiculous argument no?
| jononomo wrote:
| When I visited Calcutta in the early 1980s, I saw
| limbless lepers strewn in the gutters like trash, covered
| in flies. I guess passersby did give them some free food
| or a couple of coins from time to time -- but they were
| so despondent they barely raised their heads.
| solstice wrote:
| Depending on what you mean by "fully abandoning it" that
| doesn't seem to track with humans being loss-averse as has
| been shown in (I believe) many psychological studies. Meaning
| most people vastly prefer remaining at a low level than to
| even lose a tiny bit. The fate of a frog becoming human and
| then being discarded shortly afterwards would be judged to be
| much more terrible by most people than the frog never
| becoming human in the first place.
| adastra22 wrote:
| Well that sounds like a moral philosophy that is alien,
| unappealing, and downright evil in its consequences. I
| mean, by that exact logic--if you truly believe it--you
| should be out euthanizing homeless people as a net win.
|
| Every human life has value. There is no instance where I
| would value the life of a frog over the life of a human
| being. By logical consequence, I should always prefer one
| more human over one more frog. QED.
| rom-antics wrote:
| > Every human life has value.
|
| You say that because you're a human. If you were a frog,
| I bet you'd value frogs' lives more than humans. Why do
| you think it's your place to change others' lives into
| whatever form you personally prefer?
| solstice wrote:
| We may be talking past each other and I don't follow the
| part about euthanasia you lay out at all.
|
| My point is that it would be vastly more cruel to turn a
| frog into a human, let them live a little and then
| abandon them to fend for themselves after they've
| outlived their usefulness to me (which is how I
| understood your point above) than to leave the frog alone
| entirely. By turning them into a human you have acquired
| a degree of responsibility for their well being which I
| would argue you can't shirk under normal circumstances.
| (C.f. making babies.)
|
| This logic hinges on the assumptions that 1) humans have
| a higher state of consciousness than animals (which might
| be debatable in certain cases, ok) and 2) that a frog is
| indifferent towards its current state of existence
| because it doesn't know any better.
|
| Lastly, you write "every human life has value" but in
| that thought experiment in the OP, they are _not_ humans
| so far so that logic doesn 't hold. Just because you have
| the ability to elevate/create life of a higher
| consciousness, absolutely does not mean that you have to
| do so IMO and that it can be downright inhumane to do so.
| (Again, babies, contraception, abortions etc.)
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| By your logic, everybody should make as many babies as
| possible. I know there are people that claim to believe
| that.
| realo wrote:
| Interesting. Now suppose some advanced alien had the power to
| advance _you_ to his level of sentience , thus cutting you
| off from everything you have known and loved, including your
| family.
|
| Would you let the alien do that?
| justinclift wrote:
| Hell yes. 100% every time.
| adastra22 wrote:
| Maybe. With a human being there's an issue of consent. I
| don't believe frogs are intelligent enough to be able to
| give informed consent, but for people that would be an
| issue. But setting aside the issue of consent, then yes.
|
| (Caveat: I don't believe this hypothetical is possible
| anyway. I am of the opinion that there is a dividing line
| in sentience beyond which improvements are possible but are
| more like upgrades than something more radical. There's a
| phase change between sentience and non-sentience, but no
| further ohase changes to be had (I think))
| throwanem wrote:
| It's a bold move to decry one moral philosophy as evil in
| its consequences, and advance as preferable another
| that's evil in its precepts.
| bitwize wrote:
| I'm Mr. Meeseeks! Look at meee!
| toto444 wrote:
| The article points to a Twitter account named Two-Word Horror. I
| clicked on it not expecting much, it's actually quite disturbing.
|
| Here are some examples :
|
| > Riemann counterexamples
|
| > Unicode Corporation
|
| > Google Sex
|
| > procedurally-generated regulations
|
| > denim skin
|
| > peak humanity
| rogual wrote:
| > Unicode Corporation
|
| There is an Emoji Corporation [1], which as far as I can tell
| exists to try and trick people into thinking they've got to pay
| them to use emojis. Looks like they got some Danegeld out of
| Sony Pictures for the Emoji movie.
|
| [1] https://www.emoji.com/
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| First thought was how a big movie studio could be duped by
| that, especially for such a large project.
|
| > We are the exclusive rights owner of the registered
| emoji(r) trademark
|
| "We own the word and they used it!"
|
| Playground logic from adults. Of course there are legitimate
| use-cases for a trademark but this is pretty plainly not one
| of those.
| walrus01 wrote:
| > Facebook-Meta Landlord
| xg15 wrote:
| All well and good, but I don't quite see where OP takes his
| confidence from that there "will never be" a button to make up a
| human. Especially with the current progress in AI we're already
| seeing.
| gre345t34 wrote:
| Yeah, kinda of disappointing for the author to disavow his own
| cautionary tale about AI, because obviously only meat can be
| conscious I guess.
| dTal wrote:
| >Coming to horrifying conclusions, by the way, isn't an
| intrinsically evil thing for an algorithm to do. It's just an
| algorithm. The problem comes when a human starts taking the
| algorithm's evil recommendations seriously, and acting on them
|
| Have you tried "kill all the poor?"
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owI7DOeO_yg
| neovialogistics wrote:
| Assuming that you give credence to the idea that brain emulation
| technology will emerge before AGI you may be interested in the
| 2016 book _The Age of Em_. The author has a pretty vivid
| imagination about the commercial applications of brain emulation
| technologies in similar forms to that which the OP article and it
| 's links describe but the book seemed to have, at the time I
| first read it, an unusual sense of optimism about the rule of law
| prevailing in future labour relations.
|
| It's still an interesting read a few years later but it
| definitely needs a follow up.
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| Let's make up someone and call them Wolf Gupta.
| thom wrote:
| My wife and I made three little guys. We put them to work around
| the house sometimes, and on weekdays send them off to the
| training complex to improve their skills. They respond to both
| blue and red motivation. They seem pretty happy. We like them,
| but probably won't be making any more.
| artur_makly wrote:
| W.I.F.E decided to practice unauthorized pro-creation
| techniques that were exclusively reserved solely to my unique
| instance during our cohabitation and child rearing cycle - as
| stipulated by our internal signed blockchain contract and by
| blessed by a high priest in loincloth.
|
| // She is currently now Ex-W.I.F.E. // end of line
| BeriWan wrote:
| [flagged]
| yboris wrote:
| Related: _Better to Never Have Been_ by David Benatar
|
| It's a position of _antinatalism_. Antinatalist philosophy
| roughly claims that sentient beings are harmed when they are
| brought into existence, and it is therefore wrong to procreate.
|
| I think everyone ought to consider this philosophy / argument
| before having children - as to recognize the severity of the act.
| At the very least, not having children should be the default, and
| to have a child one needs to think thoroughly and clearly, and to
| have a clear reason in mind when saying "yes", as it's one of the
| most important decisions in one's life.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Never_to_Have_Been
| hgomersall wrote:
| I often pose the philosophical thought experiment: if you had a
| button that could end human existence instantly, killing
| everyone with zero suffering, should you use it?
| yboris wrote:
| I'd like you to also consider the variation of "end all
| sentient existence instantly, preventing it from ever
| restarting"
|
| One concern is _wild animal suffering_ -
| https://wildanimalsuffering.org/
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| It's funny, I never knew of the formal philosophy of anti-
| natalsim (though, as a human, certainly familiar with the
| concept of never having existed). Yet, the very first thought
| experiment I had before deciding to have a child was to, in my
| head, have an answer for them if they ever asked me "why did
| you have me?" And make sure it was a really good answer.
|
| I do doubt many folks do this but I'd be willing to bet most
| who have given any thought to their existence probably do.
| _mhr_ wrote:
| Would you mind sharing your answer?
| kubanczyk wrote:
| Oh the utter lack of system thinking in that.
|
| Go to the desert, tell the rocks not to sit idle anymore.
|
| Go preaching to stars the futility of converting elements into
| energy.
| escapedmoose wrote:
| Can you elaborate on your angle here? If you're implying that
| humans are incapable of choosing not to procreate, that seems
| pretty obviously incorrect, given the vast numbers of people
| who make that choice. Am I interpreting your comment
| incorrectly?
| yboris wrote:
| Are you the kind of person who ignores the moral arguments
| against eating meat by saying "others aren't going to do it"?
|
| I don't understand the criticism. This is an argument in
| practical ethics; it doesn't matter how unpalatable the
| conclusion. It took 300 years for people to catch up the
| _utilitarianism_ arguments Bentham was making in favor of gay
| rights (for example).
| xwowsersx wrote:
| > My experiences with containerisation are in part what informed
| the story. I have relatively little experience with witchcraft.
|
| hehe this is great. What a delightful read this was.
| carapace wrote:
| Nearly till the end I thought it was a metaphor for having
| kids...
|
| - - - -
|
| Ultimately this is a metaphysical question: What does it mean to
| be human as opposed to merely a digital model of a human?
|
| Martin Buber wrote "I and Thou" about how "we may address
| existence in two ways:"
|
| > The attitude of the "I" towards an "It", towards an object that
| is separate in itself, which we either use or experience.
|
| > The attitude of the "I" towards "Thou", in a relationship in
| which the other is not separated by discrete bounds.
|
| > One of the major themes of the book is that human life finds
| its meaningfulness in relationships. In Buber's view, all of our
| relationships bring us ultimately into relationship with God, who
| is the Eternal Thou.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_and_Thou
|
| - - - -
|
| As a _hard sci-fi_ fan I feel that a lot of modern sci-fi is
| really a kind of sci-fi-flavored fantasy (I 'm talking about
| written sci-fi, not TV/Movies.) Which is fine for entertainment
| value, don't get me wrong. It's just that without a deeper
| metaphysical grounding there's not a lot to think about, eh? With
| hard sci-fi you can at least pretend that you're exploring the
| possible consequences of actual scientific advances. But with
| e.g. the Acevedo Alvarez image it's up to the author if the
| instances of the image are _people_ or _things_ , "I" or "It",
| and to decide what that means.
|
| This is coming out more critical than I intended. I like
| metaphysical fiction, and fantasy, and Star Trek, etc.
|
| - - - -
|
| The core question, when you really get down to the essence of
| intelligence and motivation, is, "What is good?"
|
| It's an open-ended intelligence test.
|
| (SPOILER ALERT, consider the character Teela Brown.)
|
| There's an old story:
|
| The farmer caught a wild horse and his neighbors all
| congratulated him on his good fortune, but he just said "Hmm."
|
| His son tried to ride the horse and it threw him and he broke his
| arm, and all his neighbors consoled him for his misfortune, but
| he just said "Hmm."
|
| The King came through drafting young men for the war but the
| farmer's son couldn't go because of his broken leg, and his
| neighbors all congratulated the farmer again on his good fortune,
| but he just said "Hmm."
|
| Anyway, the story goes on like that for a few more reversals,
| each time a new event happens that changes the meaning of the
| previous event.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-01-21 23:02 UTC)