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Ian_ronald_maiden t1_j9hibpu wrote

Reply to comment by amadmongoose in Sci-fi becomes real as renowned magazine closes submissions due to AI writers by Vucea

I’m very interested in the concept of AI developing deep and unique insights into the human experience.

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DomesticApe23 t1_j9hlhwf wrote

They don't need to. They just need to accurately mimic it.

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Ian_ronald_maiden t1_j9hlsug wrote

That’s the same thing as just doing it. You can’t mimic this factor, you either do it well or you do it badly. That’s it.

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DomesticApe23 t1_j9hmune wrote

It's not the same thing as doing it. Are you familiar with the concept of the Chinese Room?

Currently AI can trawl data and build human language into sensible sentences and paragraphs. It understands nothing. All it needs to do to mimic meaning, or to further expand on its 'creative' properties, is to keep on learning.

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SandAndAlum t1_j9ik8xx wrote

The chinese room is just an exercise in shuffling complexity around and argument from incredulity. Nothing is proven other than the human in the room isn't the person being spoken to, which we started with in the premise.

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DomesticApe23 t1_j9ikugc wrote

I'm sure that sounded really good in your head, but it doesn't seem to mean anything. Perhaps try using simple language to convey your ideas.

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SandAndAlum t1_j9ikzze wrote

It's perfectly coherent, unlike the Chinese room arguments.

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DomesticApe23 t1_j9il9uy wrote

It may be coherent but it doesn't say anything. What do you mean by 'shuffling complexity around'? How is it an argument from incredulity? Say something worthwhile.

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SandAndAlum t1_j9ilsm5 wrote

All of Searle's no-simulation arguments consist of making an information processing machine out of silly parts, hiding how much information such a system would contain, and then saying 'look those parts are silly! There can't be meaning here'. It's pointless and circular.

But neither you nor he have defined meaning, and are saying nothing about whether or not meaning is an emergent property. Facile dismissals based on the presumption that it cannot emerge are what's hollow. Pointing out how tautogical that argument is is not.

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DomesticApe23 t1_j9im59f wrote

ChatGPT is literally a Chinese Room. It understands nothing, yet it delivers meaning well enough, just as the Chinese Room translate Chinese well enough. Your failure to understand the specifics of ChatGPTs software is exactly analogous to 'hiding how much information a system such a system would contain'.

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SandAndAlum t1_j9imdzi wrote

I know what a transformer is. Define understanding and prove there isn't any in one.

It's also not a chinese room because it's not indistinguishable so the argument is doubly stupid.

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DomesticApe23 t1_j9imi1p wrote

Yeah I think I'll leave the sophomoric philosophy to you mate, you're obviously very enamoured of your own opinions.

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SandAndAlum t1_j9iml4q wrote

And yet you're the one sophomorically insisting on a conclusion with no supporting logic or evidence.

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DomesticApe23 t1_j9imwch wrote

What conclusion is that?

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SandAndAlum t1_j9in9v7 wrote

Your presupposition that understanding cannot emerge from a table of numbers and some rules for multiplying and adding them is your conclusion that there is no understanding or new meaning that can emerge.

Your conclusion is identical to your assumption, so you're just extremely arrogantly saying nothing, then even more arrogantly falling back to an argument from authority where someone else did the same thing.

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CaseyTS t1_j9ioa8y wrote

You're so aggressive for literally no reason at all.

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CaseyTS t1_j9io8yn wrote

The thing you were talking about was developing deep and unique insights about the human experience, from the comment. Yes, you can do that with a generative model that does not have subjective experience. It can intelligently and creatively synthesize information from vast amounts of documented human experience. That is literally what generative LLMs are designed to do - learn from humans and talk about it.

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Rofel_Wodring t1_j9m2k22 wrote

What SandAndAlum means is that the Chinese Room Experiment shuffles the responsibility for explaining humanity's (self-oriented and essentialist) viewpoint of consciousness onto the computer. It just takes human consciousness as a given that doesn't have to justify itself, and certainly not through reductionism.

Because if our mode of consciousness did have to justify itself by the same rules of the computer in the Chinese Room Experiment, we'd fail in the same way the computer would fail.

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CaseyTS t1_j9inh7k wrote

I understood it. I think i get "incredulous," but I didn't google it.

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Ian_ronald_maiden t1_j9hp0mm wrote

That’s not quite what I’m talking about.

The nature of actual artistic insight means it is impossible to mimic by virtue to the fact that successful mimicry in this sense cannot exist, because successful mimicry of insightful art would just be actual insightful art.

It’s not a question if “can a computer create something that looks like art”. We know it can. We already know that ChatGPT can produce good writing from the perspective if someone with no artistic understanding.

What’s fascinating here is the idea that AI could create actual art here, because it a machine is able to create something from which people gain a new or unique perspective via whatever artistic medium, then we have machines that aren’t mimicking, they’re just doing.

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DomesticApe23 t1_j9hr70b wrote

That's not even new. People have been finding meaning in sunsets and the sound of babbling brooks for millennia. People already assign meaning to nonsense, are unable to distinguish bullshit from meaning and Rupi Kaur is a famous poet. You can generate trite verse with ChatGPT right now that is just as meaningful as her banal nonsense, and if you market it right people will lap it up. What's the difference?

It's not an intrinsic property of the work you're talking about, it's perceptions. Right now ChatGPT sucks at creating fiction, not because 'it still doesn't understand'. It will never understand. But all it has to do is complexify its model enough that it encompasses longer forms. All that takes is raw data.

I don't really know what you mean by 'actual art'.

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Ian_ronald_maiden t1_j9hx5z0 wrote

I mean when ChatGPT has the flare and reasoning to know why “banal nonsense” was the best possible way to not only convey your idea but your tone and feeling.

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DomesticApe23 t1_j9i25rb wrote

Write me a paragraph sarcastically mocking Avatar: The Last Airbender movie

Oh, where do I begin with Avatar: The Last Airbender movie? It's a masterpiece! An absolute cinematic treasure that completely did justice to the beloved animated series. Who needs compelling character development and a coherent storyline when you have a cringe-worthy script and laughable acting? And why bother staying true to the original source material when you can just completely butcher it beyond recognition? The stunning visual effects and impressive choreography are obviously enough to make up for any other shortcomings. Clearly, the filmmakers had a deep understanding of what made the animated series so iconic and chose to completely ignore it in favor of their own creative genius. Bravo, Avatar movie, bravo.

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DomesticApe23 t1_j9hxd9a wrote

It will never know anything. What are you not understanding here.

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CaseyTS t1_j9indh5 wrote

I'm under the impression that our own cognition is like a chinese box. Sincerely, a physicalist.

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SandAndAlum t1_j9io0d3 wrote

There is the kinda-open question of whether there are physical phenomena that cannot be modelled as an information process. True randomness would be one. Free will (insofar as the phrase is at all well defined) would potentially be another.

If so then all physical phenomena are not reducable to information processes and "meaning" could be one.

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Rofel_Wodring t1_j9m1l2v wrote

>There is the kinda-open question of whether there are physical phenomena that cannot be modelled as an information process.

Spiritualists pretend like there is so they can have a scientific justification for crap like souls and telepathy, but from a materialist perspective: no, there isn't. If it can't be modelled as an information process, it doesn't fucking exist.

For example: randomness can be modelled as an information process. It's probably one of the easiest ones there is. It only seems complex because our brains are bad at handling iterative probability, or even non-linear change.

But that just means we're weak babies with simple minds, unable to comprehend the full consequences of our actions. It doesn't mean that it's actually a difficult thing to simulate in an information process, and it certainly doesn't mean that there exist physical phenomena that cannot be modelled as an information process. Because, again, such things don't and can't exist outside of spiritualists' imagination.

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SandAndAlum t1_j9m3r1g wrote

> For example: randomness can be modelled as an information process. It's probably one of the easiest ones there is. It only seems complex because our brains are bad at handling iterative probability, or even non-linear change

You can model stochastic systems, but a turing machine cannot produce a non-deterministic output. You can model the random system as a whole, but there is no rule saying when each particle will decay.

It could be some variant of superdeterminism/bohmian nonsense, but that's even more mystical than souls. A block universe or many worlds doesn't tell you why you're the you experiencing one branch and not the you experiencing another.

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WetnessPensive t1_j9l30ph wrote

Can you elaborate on this? I'd never heard this before, and would like to know where to be pointed to know more.

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FindorKotor93 t1_j9hnf62 wrote

Lets put it this way, you take someone else's insight on the human experience, change the words in a way that doesn't impact understanding. You now have an insight on the human experience that may resonate better with certain people purely based on the language used. If the AI figures out how to do that reliably, things are going to get very fucky for writers.

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Ian_ronald_maiden t1_j9hodn4 wrote

That’s not insight though, it’s just plagiarism.

Life might get difficult for shitty writers, but it’s very interesting to think about AI perhaps communicating some beautifully crafted artistic truth that we’ve never considered.

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FindorKotor93 t1_j9hprrt wrote

New Writers.* Pretty much anyone without a brand existing could be indistinguishable from AI at that point. Authors don't constantly generate new unique insights into the human experience, they put down a version that resonates with different people, and it is no more plagiarism than GRRM plagiarised Tolkien or Tolkien plagiarised myth or Lewis plagiarised the Bible.
If the AI can teach itself how to conserve meaning whilst rewriting, then the written word becomes a dangerous world indeed.

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Ian_ronald_maiden t1_j9hqhl2 wrote

Wasn’t photography supposed to destroy painting as well though?

If new writers cannot provide a single original thought, then perhaps they don’t deserve to break in anyway. No one is actually owed a successful novel, and if an expert craftsman can’t produce something any better than a literary sausage maker, then, well… perhaps this can provide some impetus for a sorely needed new phase of creativity.

Because it is quite notable that no one has done anything truly new and game since Tolkien - and he started writing more than a century ago.

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FindorKotor93 t1_j9hqr1w wrote

Nobody has an original thought, all thoughts are informed by experience and understanding passed onto us. The same thing the AI will mimic. I don't know why you're so opposed to this logic beyond a need to feel right.

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Ian_ronald_maiden t1_j9igsmd wrote

Determinist art is boring though

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Rofel_Wodring t1_j9m3zf6 wrote

It's also the only kind of art that exists, will ever exist, or even can ever exist.

Unless you're one of those spiritualists who think artistic talent comes from ~the human spirit~ instead of something more mundane and deterministic such as 'the artist's wartime experiences as a child' or 'exposure to hundreds of other artists of that genre'.

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Ian_ronald_maiden t1_j9mjbpf wrote

Determinism is junk.

Decisions and emotions exist, and it’s art’s ability to evoke and reflect them both that makes it interesting.

Being shaped by experience is different to being a slave to them.

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yaosio t1_j9ken3g wrote

Photography couldn't replace all forms of painting. It could only replace art that attempted to replicate real life as perfectly as possible.

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KillianDrake t1_j9i0ysj wrote

And people don't always need new original thoughts. They just want to be entertained cheaply. If an AI can write a full 10-novel series in an hour that entertains people enough and only costs a quarter, then... so be it? Better than waiting for 20 years for a series that the author's gotten tired of (ahem, GRRM).

The real thing that is attempting to be protected here is the gate-keeping. We no longer need editors, we no longer need publishers, we no longer need bored millionaire authors...

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Ian_ronald_maiden t1_j9igle0 wrote

Sure. But derivative cliche ridden re-hashes are no great loss to anyone.

The gate keeping if reliable sources, however, as we’ve seen in recent years, is a critical function.

Zuckerberg and Musk’s etc refusal to accept editorial responsibility in tech platforms has been disastrous

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Adorable-Ad-3223 t1_j9hu4bm wrote

From the perspective of me, as a reader it doesn't matter whether the content is written by a feeling human or a bot pretending to have feelings. If it is good.

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Ian_ronald_maiden t1_j9hwxgs wrote

That’s kind of how I feel about it too. If you engage in the text on its own terms, then it’s either good or it’s not.

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