To go deeper: some animals act curiously, others with fear, but only a few of them understand what the mirror does and use it to inspect themselves.
My dog doesn’t pay any attention to mirrors, or llms.
Except it’s not my reflection, it’s a reflection of millions if not billions of humans.
I like to describe it as a “force multiplier” along the lines of a powered suit.
You are putting in small inputs, and it’s echoing out in a vast, vast virtual space and being compared and connected with countless billions of possible associations. What you get back is a kind of amplification of what you put in. If you make even remotely leading suggestions in your question or prompt, that tiny suggestion is also going to get massively boosted in the background, this is part of why some LLM’s can go off the rails with some users. If you don’t take care with what exactly you’re putting in, you will get wildly unexpected results.
Except it’s not their reflection, it’s a string of phrases presented to you based partly on the commonality of similar phrases appearing next to one another in the training data, and partly on mysterious black box modifications! Fun!
Just think about the fact llms are basically trying to simulate reddit posts and then think again about using them.
The mirror test is frequently cited as a means of testing sentience.
OP I think you hit the nail on the head.
Based on the fact that most people don’t see their interaction with the LLM as gazing into the mirror, am I being led to believe that most people are not sentient???
Based entirely on the opinions of people on niche social media platforms, yes.
Mmm, I mean, sentience is a gradient, right? The mirror test is where we decided to draw the line, but there are more places to do so. My toddler thinks his favorite toy has some level of agency, just as by all accounts his older sister thinks Bluey has an identity. Depending on the test, there are developmental markers where we statistically transition from failing to succeeding. Another way to look at it is that for each developmental range, we can develop tests that challenge how we perceive autonomy, which some people succeed at and others fail. We may have just inadvertently developed a test that a significant amount of adults are just going to fail as human beings.
This is a great one - although I never see animals worshipping the mirror.
Or forming romantic attachments to the mirror
Animals aren’t cursed with the human ability to think our way into harmful and unproductive behavior due to conscious re-interpretation of information around us. Except for occasional zoo-animals in captivity that fall in love with inanimate objects.
Something something about our species basically being in captivity.
Uhmm … you never had a pet bird Im guessing?
Seeing all bird masturbate up against a mirror is just par for the course when you have bird pets. Its gonna be either a mirror, a favorite toy … or you.
I love the idea of a bunch of woodland creatures (completely unaware of what mirrors are) investing heavily—and aggressively—in mirrors and mirror-related technology.
Squirrels (lemmings) pooling all of their nuts at the alter, lol.
Investor Squirrel 1: “All you have to do is gather your acorns right here, and they will instantly double in value!”
Investor Squirrel 2: “Bro’, we’re so sentient!!!”
I’ve got a duck that prefers to dance in front of a chrome bumper or glass door where he can see his reflection than to go after any potential mates. Possibly he’s worshipping the mirror. Possibly he’s just really vain.
Sounds like he’s ducking handsome
He is actually. When he washes himself he’s blinding white. And when he dances he gets a little feather pompadour on the top of his head.
Nothing wrong with a handsome duck taking a little self affirmation time - he knows his value, he can’t look away.
Your duck:
I find this kind of Anti AI Sentience bigotry horrible!
Interesting take. Could you elaborate?
My post comes from the study of the algebra and stats that enable LLMs (well, part of it. i am not done with the “attention”.
I was making a joke based on my username
the “mirror stage” by lacan is worth looking into here but no, I don’t think humans automatically think the llm has a sort of reified other, but as we get past an uncanny valley and into generations growing up with entire personal histories in an llm - I can absolutely see that happening.
I think most people using them know that there’s not something there, and yet when using it they’ll still act as there is. Even giving it that benefit of doubt in what it outputs as valid, as if it’s from another person, maybe even one who knows more than they do. So it’s a gray area of “not believing”.
Continuing on “there’s not something there”, what about theater analogy to llm’s? Usually people know it’s all act, but if actors play too good, you immerse. And it’s focus is not the truth, it tells the story.
If I understand your statement correctly, only the most intelligent creatures would understand that LLM’s are themselves?
But they are a reflexion of ourselves. If you look at the algebra and stats underneath, you’ll realize that they spit out whatever it is in us
I checked with that other gorilla who lives in the bathroom and he says you’re wrong
lol, Is that the same gorilla that you see in other bathrooms? Or (like me) you meet a new gorilla every time you wash your hands?
I think he’s the same guy. I used to try to bust him up but he just kept multiplying into more pieces and then coming back whole every time I saw a new mirror, so I eventually gave up
False. My reflection can’t tell me that pressing the Steam button and X will bring up the keyboard on Steam Deck’s desktop mode.
pressing and holding the steam button tells u every steam shortcut
Related: is there a name for “question bias”?
Like asking ChatGPT if “is x good?”, and it would reply “Yes, x is good.” but if you ask “is x bad?” it would reply “Yes, x is bad, you’re right.”
It’s just a leading question.
It is not a leading question. The answer just happens to be meaningless.
Asking whether something is good is the vast majority of human concern. Most of our rational activity is fundamentally evaluative.
Not nearly enough people understand this about our current models of AI. Even people who think they understand AI don’t understand this, usually because they have been talking to themselves a lot without realizing it.
Annihilation?
Yeah. Figured it was a good visual representation of seeing an AI version of ourselves in a mirror.
And here I am practising my smile in the mirror (like that golden retriever)
Huh…so what you’re saying is that mirrors are actually AI.
THAT MAKES A LOT OF SENSE!!! EVERYBODY COVER YOUR MIRRORS!!!
