New adventures in AI hype: “Our language models are so ‘conscious’ we need to give them rights”
We recorded 7 claims from this post. 3 were checked against evidence. 4 can’t be checked. 1 more is held. Read the post at its source.
Claims from this post (7)
In the order they appear in the post. Each quotation is the speaker’s words in this post. A label such as “Supported” or “Can’t be checked” is the claim’s current assessment; its page has the evidence and the reasons.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Forecast
“None of the software in either of those systems has survived in modern efforts at “artificial general intelligence”, and I am not sure that LaMDA and its cousins will play any important role in the future of AI, either.”
Our reading: LaMDA and similar language models may not play any important role in the future of AI.
No horizon
Qualifier: 2022 argument reaffirmed as applying to today's LLMs
Assessment: UnresolvedSaid
Observation
“What these systems do, no more and no less, is to put together sequences of words, but without any coherent understanding of the world behind them, like foreign language Scrabble players who use English words as point-scoring tools, without any clue about what that mean.”
Our reading: LLMs only string together sequences of words and have no coherent understanding of the world behind them.
No horizon Evidence as of
Limitation: The positive mechanistic evidence comes from the model developer and has acknowledged methodological limits.
Assessment: UnresolvedSaid
Causal claim
“Claude does what LaMDA does better because it has more data, but I don’t see any really argument that Claude is any more sentient than a web browser.”
Our reading: Claude does what LaMDA does better because it has more data, but Marcus says he does not see any real argument that Claude is any more sentient than a web browser.
No horizon Evidence as of
Limitation: Private training information limits causal assessment.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Observation
“Search and replace LaMDA with Claude, and it all still applies.”
Our reading: Marcus's 2022 argument that LaMDA was not sentient and lacked understanding applies equally to Anthropic's Claude.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Observation
“I still don’t remotely see an argument that current models are sentient, nor any argument that scaling a model makes it more conscious, even if it can mimic more language from humans discussing consciousness.”
Our reading: Marcus says he still does not remotely see an argument that current models are sentient, nor any argument that scaling a model makes it more conscious, even if a scaled model can mimic more human language about consciousness.
No horizon
Qualifier: even if it can mimic more language from humans discussing consciousness
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Causal claim
“I suspect the real move here is simply, as it so often is, to hype the product — basically by saying, hey, look at how smart our product is, it’s so smart we need to give it rights.”
Our reading: Anthropic's work on evaluating the 'welfare' of its models is probably mainly a commercial move to hype its product as smart enough to need rights.
No horizon
Assessment: SupportedSaid
Observation
“Anthropic is a business (which incidentally neglects to respect the rights of artist and writers who work they nick).”
Our reading: Anthropic fails to respect the rights of the artists and writers whose work it takes.
No horizon Evidence as of
Limitation: Support concerns documented book acquisition, not every creative work or every use.
Held from this post (1)
These records did not pass every check, so nothing about them is published. Held is not a finding.
- The criteria are ambiguous. Our reading, not assessed: Language models like LaMDA do not connect their representations to the world; they are just autocomplete that predicts which words fit a context.