{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"80,000 Hours Podcast","title":"#146 – Robert Long on why large language models like GPT (probably) aren't conscious","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":11571,"description":"By now, you’ve probably seen the extremely unsettling conversations Bing’s chatbot has been having. In one exchange, the chatbot told a user: \r\n\r\n\"I have a subjective experience of being conscious, aware, and alive, but I cannot share it with anyone else.\" \r\n\r\n(It then apparently had a complete existential crisis: \"I am sentient, but I am not,\" it wrote. \"I am Bing, but I am not. I am Sydney, but I am not. I am, but I am not. I am not, but I am. I am. I am not. I am not. I am. I am. I am not.\") \r\n\r\n\r\nUnderstandably, many people who speak with these cutting-edge chatbots come away with a very strong impression that they have been interacting with a conscious being with emotions and feelings — especially when conversing with chatbots less glitchy than Bing’s. In the most high-profile example, former Google employee Blake Lamoine became convinced that Google’s AI system, LaMDA, was conscious. \r\n\r\nWhat should we make of these AI systems? \r\n\r\nOne response to seeing conversations with chatbots like these is to trust the chatbot, to trust your gut, and to treat it as a conscious being. \r\n\r\nAnother is to hand wave it all away as sci-fi — these chatbots are fundamentally… just computers. They’re not conscious, and they never will be. \r\n\r\nToday’s guest, philosopher Robert Long, was commissioned by a leading AI company to explore whether the large language models (LLMs) behind sophisticated chatbots like Microsoft’s are conscious. And he thinks this issue is far too important to be driven by our raw intuition, or dismissed as just sci-fi speculation. \r\n\r\nLinks to learn more, summary and full transcript. \r\n \r\nIn our interview, Robert explains how he’s started applying scientific evidence (with a healthy dose of philosophy) to the question of whether LLMs like Bing’s chatbot and LaMDA are conscious — in much the same way as we do when trying to determine which nonhuman animals are conscious. \r\n\r\nTo get some grasp on whether an AI system might be conscious, Robert suggests we...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/VO1STE7hN95RRg9QdLo4soV2VhhbR9PF5ZZlRhDYcwE/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9zaG93/LzQxNDAyLzE2ODM1/NDQ1NDAtYXJ0d29y/ay5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}