this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2023

-21 points (27.7% liked)

Ask Lemmy

26890 readers

1864 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try [email protected]

Rules: (interactive)

1) Be nice and; have fun

Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them

2) All posts must end with a '?'

This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?

3) No spam

Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.

4) NSFW is okay, within reason

Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected]. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].

5) This is not a support community.

It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.

Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

-21

Should AI be referred to as "it" or "they"? (lemmy.world)

submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

55 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Of course AI isn't sentient/conscious, but it exhibits traits of high intelligence, even personality, and behaviours consistent with sentience, even if it's merely simulated.

The answer ChatGPT gave me:

Referring to AI as "it" is the most common practice since AI, as a technological entity, doesn't possess inherent human-like qualities. However, as AI advances and becomes more integrated into daily life, some individuals prefer using "they" to acknowledge the complexity and multifaceted nature of AI systems. This choice can reflect a perspective that sees AI as more than just a tool or machine, attributing a certain level of agency or personality to these systems. Both "it" and "they" can be used, but the context and individual preferences often guide the choice.

And in response to "Is AI alive in a way?"

AI lacks the fundamental attributes of living organisms, such as biological processes and the ability to reproduce. However, AI can exhibit behaviors that simulate aspects of intelligence, learning, and adaptation. While it's not alive in a biological sense, some people metaphorically attribute a form of "life" to AI due to its dynamic nature, ability to evolve, and perform complex tasks autonomously. This association with "life" is more symbolic or metaphorical rather than literal.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

This is gobbledygook. They don't know which processes they fire and when, but they know exactly which processes they have. None of them are processes to actually interpret language - only processes to reproduce representations of language. And even if they could coherently interpret language, that still is a long way off from consciousness.

Generative AI is still using the same software and hardware as Microsoft Word. Don't mistake fantasy for reality.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

This is gobbledygook.

What is?

They don't know which processes they fire and when, but they know exactly which processes they have.

Who are "they"? What processes are you referring to?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago

Is English not your first language? This isn't unclear at all.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Humans only work on representations of language too? I don't understand the distinction

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

01001000 01110101 01101101 01100001 01101110 01110011 00100000 01110111 01101111 01110010 01101011 00100000 01110111 01101001 01110100 01101000 00100000 01101100 01100001 01101110 01100111 01110101 01100001 01100111 01100101 00100000 01101001 01110100 01110011 01100101 01101100 01100110 00111010 00100000 01101100 01100101 01110100 01110100 01100101 01110010 01110011 00101100 00100000 01110111 01101111 01110010 01100100 01110011 00101100 00100000 01110011 01110000 01100101 01100101 01100011 01101000 00101110 00100000 01000011 01101111 01101101 01110000 01110101 01110100 01100101 01110010 01110011 00100000 01110111 01101111 01110010 01101011 00100000 01110111 01101001 01110100 01101000 00100000 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 00100000 01110010 01100101 01110000 01110010 01100101 01110011 01100101 01101110 01110100 01100001 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 01110011 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01101100 01100001 01101110 01100111 01110101 01100001 01100111 01100101 00111010 00100000 01101010 01110101 01110011 01110100 00100000 00110000 01110011 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 00110001 01110011 00101110

Humans work with language itself: letters, words, speech. Computers work with binary representations of language: just 0s and 1s.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Firstly, written language can be represented in binary without any loss of information.

Secondly, audio of spoken language can be represented in binary with so little loss it's indistinguishable to humans.

Thirdly, and most importantly, written and spoken language are also just representations. We like to think they're special, but they're not. There's nothing fundamentally special about how we process language that can't be reproduced artificially.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Firstly, written language can be represented in binary without any loss of information.

It's still not language, though. It's just binary.

Secondly, audio of spoken language can be represented in binary with so little loss it's indistinguishable to humans.

Still not language.

written and spoken language are also just representations.

Of what? What does this need to be translated to for humans to understand it?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

You realise our eyes and ears convert language to a different representation before it reaches our brain, right?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 11 months ago

You're making a stretch here. Language is not a representation - it is the thing being communicated. If you really want to get down to it, there's some debate as to whether we communicate the exact same thing - qualia being what it is - but there is nothing shared beneath language for it to be a representation of (partly because of qualia, in fact).

This "different representation" is not an actual layer of meaning - it is just the mere act of recognising the language.