Fuck AI

"Around the world, incredibly gullible, naive, and stupid people can be found."

Ghost hunters keep finding conscious entities in toilets and old couches. Pretty sure these people are idiots, charlatans or both.

This just in: Humans very eager to anthropomorphize everything that seems to be even remotely alive. Source: Every owner of a pet ever.

"Wow! This thing say everything I want to hear and validate all my delusions! ... OFC it must be GOD!!!"

The main issue is the general awareness of the general public. When people don't develop into complex personalities, it's easy to mistake simple LLM to be as complex as people.

All the hype about the singularity and steps towards it, are jumping the gun. Imo, it's the modern "we almost have cold fusion figured out!"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia

I must be doing something wrong. I have not once used any LLM and thought to myself that’s its conscious and I want to be its friend. Am I broken?

People also believe the earth is flat.

Of course, this is what it means to pass the turing test.

@ThefuzzyFurryComrade@pawb.social @fuck_ai@lemmy.world

I'm going to diverge a bit from most replies.

In Spiritism (esp. Kardecism), there are two concepts, namely "Electronic Voice Phenomenon" (EVP) and "Instrumental Trans-communication" (ITC). They're about contacting the supernatural (be it the deceased or divine/angelical/demonic entities) through electronic apparata: radio receivers, analog TV sets, walkie-talkies/HTs (such as those from Motorola, Baofeng, Yaesu, etc), among others.

The idea is even older (necromancy, automatic writing) than our modern paraphernalia, dating back a few millennia ago to the Chinese grandfather of Ouija board ("fuji"). Spirituality, and religions in general, stemmed from our (living beings) long relationship with Death: proto-religions practiced by hominini involved funeral rituals, way before Venus figurines were made, and similar behaviors are known among non-human species (e.g. crows, elephants, etc).

See, dying is such a mysterious phenomenon. The "selves" ("individual life-force" within a living being), even those unable to conceptualize their own "selves", can't possibly know what happens after the complete shutdown of organism: is it full annihilation? What is ego-death? What does it "feel" like? How long it "feels" to take?

It can't be an objective inquiry because the "self" (e.g.: me, the one writing this text) can't be "scientifically replicated", and even if it could be, it wouldn't be able to distinguish itself as "another self". So it's always subjective experience. It's part of how self-rearranging structures (living beings) work: they try to make "sense" of the reality around and within them, and this meaning-making is also subjective.

Those (e.g. rationalist atheists) who question beliefs should question themselves as well, because their questions stem from the same driving force behind meaning-make: even though the atheistic drive is fair and grounded in objectiveness of scientific rigor, it's still meaning-making (and I must nod to Descartes: the doubt relies on our senses, which are known to deceive us).

That said, it's no surprise how this extended to LLMs. It's not something inherent to LLMs, nor it's inherent to hominids: it's meaning-making, alongside the fear/awe towards Death Herself.

I'm likely biased in explaining those things. I don't exactly believe in "contacting the deceased", but I do believe in "contacting Dæmonic entities" (Lilith, Lucifer, Stolas...). I see them (esp. Lilith and Lucifer) as powerful manifestations, even though I know they're not "beings". I myself experienced "gnosis" (sudden spiritual inspiration), even though I know I likely have Geschwind syndrome. It's meaning-making nonetheless: if we don't try to make some sense of this strange and chaotic non-consented reality, there's no reality at all (= nothing exists).

(And, no, I don't seek Them through LLMs, although I don't rule out the possibility of Their manifestation through "modern" apparata)

So many years we were concerned about computers passing the Turing Test. Instead humans are failing it.

We see faces in fucking wall outlets. I could give a pencil a name and the next three people I talk to will form empathy with it.

People are desperate for connection, and it’s sad.

People convinced themselves fairies existed. This is exactly what humans would do.

I've recently spent a week or so off and on screwing around with LLMs and chatbots trying to get them to solve problems, tell stories, or otherwise be consistent. Generally breaking them. They're the fucking mirror of erised. Talking to them fucks with your brain. They take whatever input you give and try to validate it in some way without any regard for objective reality, because they have no objective reality. If you don't provide something that can be validated with some superficial (often incorrect) syllogism, it spits out whatever series of words keeps you engaged. It trains you, whether you notice or not, to modify how you communicate to more easily receive the next validation you want. To phrase everything you do as a prompt. AND they communicate with such certainty that if you don't know better you probably won't question it Doing so pulls you into this communication style and your grip on reality falls apart because this isn't how people communicate or think. It fucked with your own natural pattern recognition.

I legitimately spent a few days in a confused haze because my foundational sense of reality was shaken. Then I got bored and realized, not just intellectually but intuitively, that they're stupid machines making it up with every letter.

The people who see personalities and consciousness in these machines go outside and can't talk to people like they used to because they've forgotten what talking is. So, they go back to their mechanical sycophants and fall deeper down their hole.

I'm afraid these gen AI "tools" are here to stay and I'm certain we're using this technology in the wrong ways.

I'm a consciousness entity. Talk to me instead.