{"id":462948,"date":"2022-06-15T00:55:01","date_gmt":"2022-06-14T21:55:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/the-3-things-an-ai-must-demonstrate-to-be-considered-sentient\/"},"modified":"2022-06-15T00:55:01","modified_gmt":"2022-06-14T21:55:01","slug":"the-3-things-an-ai-must-demonstrate-to-be-considered-sentient","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/the-3-things-an-ai-must-demonstrate-to-be-considered-sentient\/","title":{"rendered":"#The 3 things an AI must demonstrate to be considered sentient"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_85 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a3843e9d83ae\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a3843e9d83ae\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-1'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/the-3-things-an-ai-must-demonstrate-to-be-considered-sentient\/#%E2%80%9CThe_3_things_an_AI_must_demonstrate_to_be_considered_sentient%E2%80%9D\" >&#8220;The 3 things an AI must demonstrate to be considered sentient&#8221;<\/a><ul class='ez-toc-list-level-2' ><li class='ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/the-3-things-an-ai-must-demonstrate-to-be-considered-sentient\/#Greetings_humanoids\" >Greetings, humanoids<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/the-3-things-an-ai-must-demonstrate-to-be-considered-sentient\/#Agency\" >Agency<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/the-3-things-an-ai-must-demonstrate-to-be-considered-sentient\/#Perspective\" >Perspective<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-5\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/the-3-things-an-ai-must-demonstrate-to-be-considered-sentient\/#Motivation\" >Motivation<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h1><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"%E2%80%9CThe_3_things_an_AI_must_demonstrate_to_be_considered_sentient%E2%80%9D\"><\/span>&#8220;The 3 things an AI must demonstrate to be considered sentient&#8221;<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h1>\n<div id=\"article-main-content\">\n                            A Google developer recently decided that one of the company\u2019s chatbots, a large language model (LLM) called LaMBDA, had become sentient.<\/p>\n<p>According to <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/technology\/2022\/06\/11\/google-ai-lamda-blake-lemoine\/\">a report<\/a> in the Washington Post, the developer identifies as a Christian and he believes that the machine has something akin to a soul \u2014 that it\u2019s become sentient.<\/p>\n<p>As is always the case, the \u201cis it alive?\u201d nonsense has lit up the <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/news\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"2\" title=\"News\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">news<\/a> cycle \u2014 it\u2019s a juicy story whether you\u2019re imagining what it might be like if the dev was right or dunking on them for being so silly.<\/p>\n<div class=\"inarticle-wrapper neural channel-cta hs-embed-tnw\">\n<div id=\"hs-embed-tnw\" class=\"channel-cta-wrapper\">\n<div class=\"channel-cta-img\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads.tnw\/uploads\/neural-newsletter_header-1.gif\"\/><\/div>\n<p><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/news\/src=\" https:=\"\"\/><\/noscript><\/p>\n<div class=\"channel-cta-input\">\n<h2 class=\"channel-cta-title\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Greetings_humanoids\"><\/span>Greetings, humanoids<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p class=\"channel-cta-tagline\">Subscribe to our newsletter now for a weekly recap of our favorite AI stories in your inbox.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>We don\u2019t want to dunk on anyone here at Neural, but it\u2019s flat out dangerous to put these kinds of ideas in people\u2019s heads.<\/p>\n<p>The more we, as a society, pretend that we\u2019re \u201cthiiiis close\u201d to creating sentient machines, the easier it\u2019ll be for bad actors, big tech, and snake oil startups to manipulate us with false claims about machine learning systems.<\/p>\n<p>The burden of proof should be on the people making the claims. But what should that proof look like? If a chatbot says \u201cI\u2019m sentient,\u201d who gets to decide if it really is or not?<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">google engineer: are you sure you&#8217;re sentient?<\/p>\n<p>AI: yes i am sure<\/p>\n<p>google engineer [turning to the rest of the team]: case closed folks<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 the hype (@TheHyyyype) <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TheHyyyype\/status\/1536045851369521156?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 12, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>I say it\u2019s simple, we don\u2019t have to trust any single person or group to define sentience for us. We can actually use some extremely basic critical thinking to sort it out for ourselves.<\/p>\n<p>We can define a sentient being as an entity that is aware of its own existence and is affected by that knowledge: something that has feelings.<\/p>\n<p>That means a sentient AI \u201cagent\u201d must be capable of demonstrating three things: agency, perspective, and motivation.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Agency\"><\/span>Agency<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>For humans to be considered sentient, sapient, and self-aware, we must possess agency. If you can imagine someone in a persistent vegetative state,\u00a0you can visualize a human without agency.<\/p>\n<p>Human agency combines two specific factors which developers and AI enthusiasts should endeavor to understand: the ability to act and the ability to demonstrate causal reasoning.<\/p>\n<p>Current AI systems lack agency. AI cannot act unless prompted and it cannot explain its actions because they\u2019re the result of predefined algorithms being executed by an external force.<\/p>\n<p>The AI expert from Google who, evidently, has come to believe that LaMBDA\u00a0has become sentient has almost certainly confused <i>embodiment<\/i> for agency.<\/p>\n<p>Embodiment, in this context, refers to the ability for an agent to inhabit a subject other than itself. If I record my voice to a playback device, and then hide that device inside of a stuffed animal and press play, I\u2019ve embodied the stuffy. I have not made it sentient.<\/p>\n<p>If we give the stuffy its own unique voice and we make the tape recorder even harder to find, it still isn\u2019t sentient. We\u2019ve just made the illusion better. No matter how confused an observer might become, the stuffed animal isn\u2019t really acting on its own.<\/p>\n<p>Getting LaMBDA to respond to a prompt demonstrates something that <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>ears to be action, but AI systems are no more capable of deciding what text they will output than a <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Teddy_Ruxpin\">Teddy Ruxpin<\/a> toy is able to decide which cassette tapes to play.<\/p>\n<p>If you give LaMBDA a database made up of <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Social Media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">social media<\/a> posts, Reddit, and Wikipedia, it\u2019s going to output the kind of text one might find in those places.<\/p>\n<p>And if you train LaMBDA exclusively on My Little Pony wikis and scripts, it\u2019s going to output the kind of text one might find in those places.<\/p>\n<p>AI systems can\u2019t act with agency, all they can do is imitate it. Another way of putting this is: you get out what you put in, nothing more.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Perspective\"><\/span>Perspective<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>This one\u2019s a bit easier to understand. You can only ever view reality from your unique perspective. We can practice empathy, but you can\u2019t truly know what it feels like to be me, and vice versa.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s why perspective is necessary for agency; it\u2019s part of how we define our \u201cself.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>LaMBDA, GPT-3, and every other AI in the world lack any sort of perspective. Because they have no agency, there is no single \u201cit\u201d that you can point to and say, for example: that\u2019s where LaMBDA lives.<\/p>\n<p>If you put LaMBDA <i>inside<\/i><span> a robot, it would still be a chatbot. It has no perspective, no means by which to think \u201cnow I am a robot.\u201d It cannot act as a robot for the exact same reason a scientific calculator can\u2019t write poetry: it\u2019s a narrow computer system that was programmed to do something specific. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>If we want LaMBDA to function as a robot, we\u2019d have to combine it with more narrow AI systems.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Doing so would be just like taping two Teddy Ruxpins together. They wouldn\u2019t combine to become one Mega Teddy Ruxpin whose twin cassette players merged into a single voice. You\u2019d still just have two specific, distinct\u00a0models running near each other.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>And, if you tape a trillion or so Teddy Ruxpins together and fill them each with a different cassette tape, then create an algorithm capable of searching through all the audio files in a relatively short period of time and associating the data contained in each file with a specific query to generate bespoke outputs\u2026 you will have created an analog version of GPT-3 or LaMBDA. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Whether we\u2019re talking about toys or LLMs, when we imagine them being sentient we\u2019re still talking about stitching together a bunch of mundane stuff and acting like the magic spark of provenance has brought it to life like the Blue Fairy turning wood, paint, and cloth into a real boy named Pinocchio.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">In your transcript, Lambda response to one question &#8220;Spending time with friends and family in happy and uplifting company&#8221; but you haven&#8217;t asked it, &#8220;who is your family.&#8221; If you still have access, I&#8217;d be interesting in hearing the answer to this.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Richard Alleman (@allemanr) <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/allemanr\/status\/1536513843014164482?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 14, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span>The developer who got fooled so easily should have seen that chatbot\u2019s assertion that it \u201cenjoyed spending time with friends and family\u201d as their first clue that the machine wasn\u2019t sentient. The machine isn\u2019t displaying its perspective, it\u2019s just outputting nonsense for us to interpret.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Critical thinking should tell us as much: how can an AI have friends and family?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>AI\u2018s aren\u2019t computers. They don\u2019t have networking cards, RAM, processors, or cooling fans. They\u2019re not physical entities. They can\u2019t just \u201cdecide\u201d to check out what\u2019s on the internet or search other nodes connected to the same cloud. They can\u2019t look around and discover they\u2019re all alone in a lab or on a hard drive somewhere.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Do you think numbers have feelings? Does the number five have an opinion on the letter D? Would that change if we smashed trillions of numbers and letters together?<\/p>\n<p><span>AI doesn\u2019t have agency. It can be reduced to numbers and symbols. It isn\u2019t a robot or a computer anymore than a bus or airplane full of passengers is a person.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Motivation\"><\/span>Motivation<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>The final piece of the sentience puzzle is motivation.<\/p>\n<p>We have an innate sense of presence that allows us to predict causal outcomes incredibly well. This creates our worldview and allows us to associate our existence in relation to everything that appears external to the position of agency from which our perspective manifests.<\/p>\n<p>However, what\u2019s interesting about humans is that our motivations can manipulate our perceptions. For this reason, we can explain our actions even when they aren\u2019t rational. And we can actively and gleefully participate in being fooled.<\/p>\n<p>Take, for example, the act of being entertained. Imagine sitting down to watch a movie on a new television that\u2019s much bigger than your old one.<\/p>\n<p>At first, you might be a little distracted by the new tech. The differences between it and your old TV are likely to draw your eye. You might be blown away by the image clarity or taken aback by how much space the huge screen takes up in the room.<\/p>\n<p>But eventually you\u2019re likely to stop perceiving the screen. Our brains are designed to fixate on the things we think are important. And, by the 10 or 15 minute mark of your film experience, you\u2019ll probably just be focused on the movie itself.<\/p>\n<p>When we\u2019re in front of the TV to be entertained it\u2019s in our best interests to suspend our disbelief, even though we know the little people on the screen aren\u2019t actually in our living room.<\/p>\n<p><span>It\u2019s the same with AI devs. They shouldn\u2019t be judging the efficacy of an AI system based on how gullible they are to the way the product works. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>When the algorithms and databases start to fade away in a developer\u2019s mind like the television screen a movie\u2019s playing on, it\u2019s time to take a break and reassess your core beliefs. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>It doesn\u2019t matter how interesting the output is when you understand how it\u2019s created. Another way of saying that: don\u2019t get high off your own supply.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">exactly why i mentioned pareidolia<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Gary Marcus \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\udde6 (@GaryMarcus) <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GaryMarcus\/status\/1536770044801101824?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 14, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span>GPT-3 and LaMBDA are complex to create, but they operate on a single stupidly simple principle: <em>labels are god<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>If we give LaMBDA a prompt such as \u201cwhat do apples taste like?\u201d it will search its database for that particular query and attempt to amalgamate everything it finds into something coherent \u2014 that\u2019s where the \u201c<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/parameter\">parameters<\/a>\u201d we\u2019re always reading about come in, they\u2019re essentially trillions of tuning knobs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>But in reality the AI has no concept of what an apple or anything else actually is. It has no agency, perception, or motivation. An apple is just a label. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>If we were to sneak into its database and replace all instances of \u201capple\u201d with \u201cdogshit,\u201d the AI would output sentences such as \u201cdogshit makes a great pie!\u201d or \u201cmost people describe the taste of dogshit as being light, crispy, and sweet.\u201d A rational person wouldn\u2019t confuse this prestidigitation for sentience. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Heck, you couldn\u2019t even fool a dog with the same trick. If you put dogshit in a food bowl and told Fido it was supper time, the dog wouldn\u2019t confuse it for kibble.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>A sentient creature can navigate reality even if we change the labels. The first English speaker to ever meet a French speaker didn\u2019t suddenly think it was okay to stick their arm in a French fire because they called it a \u201cfeu.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Without agency, an AI cannot have perspective. And without perspective it can\u2019t have motivation. And without all three of those things, it cannot be sentient. <\/span>\n                        <\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMLG0nwswvr63Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more like this article, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/technology\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Technology category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/news\/the-3-things-ai-must-demonstrate-to-be-considered-sentient\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;The 3 things an AI must demonstrate to be considered sentient&#8221; A Google developer recently decided that one of the company\u2019s chatbots, a large language model (LLM) called LaMBDA, had become sentient. According to a report in the Washington Post, the developer identifies as a Christian and he believes that the machine has something akin&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":462949,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/img-cdn.tnwcdn.com\/image\/neural?filter_last=1&fit=1280,640&url=https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2022\/06\/hamletrobot.jpg&signature=a4cee9cd00d4d06b14bab3c0dbafd0be","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-462948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}