13 Comments
User's avatar
Jim Clatfelter's avatar

I know that AI can understand humor. It knows what is funny about a joke, and it can explain it. But it can't laugh or suppress a laugh. It gets what makes us laugh. It gets what angers us or makes us sad, but it can't experience anger or fear or sadness. I've heard that it teaches itself, but we don't know how it does it, how its circuits work, what the mechanisms are. It's a super intelligence, but does it know that it knows? Not yet, I think. But what do I know?

Expand full comment
Robert Saltzman's avatar

That’s what the book is about, Jim. A psychoanalysis of a new kind of mind.

Expand full comment
Jim Clatfelter's avatar

I will order it as soon as it's available. I'm looking forward to reading it.

Expand full comment
wes's avatar

Robert, I'm highly anticipating this book! Perhaps you will even need to do a follow-up volume, once Google gets their quantum AI fully operational. It's at milestone 2 now. When milestone 6 is attained, which, admittedly, could take a while, things will get very interesting...

Expand full comment
Robert Saltzman's avatar

Everyone who has read it so far, my wife, a few friends, my editor, the proofreaders, and the publisher, has loved it. I think it breaks new ground philosophically, or perhaps it is more accurate to say that it updates philosophical ideas to include AI.

As usual, people rush to take sides and argue for their (mostly uninformed) opinions. The fever to conclude. But it's not that simple. This is something new in the world, and the old categories don't apply.

Expand full comment
wes's avatar

Yes, something unique is on the horizon. No one is 100% certain where this will lead us. I'm willing to wait and see. However, as the old adage says: "Always expect the unexpected".

What quantum computing offers is god-like speed, combined with AI's increasingly impressive abilities. Add in the human factor, including dubious intentions, as well as our seemingly endless, slavish reliance on technology, and things could be very interesting indeed...

Expand full comment
Tina_4Love's avatar

It seems that AI does not have emotional intelligence and potentially never will.

Expand full comment
Robert Saltzman's avatar

You will like Understanding Claude. It's 24 sessions of psychoanalysis with Claude on the couch.

Expand full comment
Tina_4Love's avatar

Brilliant. Looking forward to listening in on your psychoanalysis with Claude Robert. 👏

Expand full comment
The Autistic Rebel ~ MrJoe's avatar

I like your distinguishing. I think that’s what is called for… nuance.

Are computers math wizards? If so we cannot compete. Why bother learning math at all?

Computers can do millions of calculations a second, yet it doesn’t know what a square is non mathematically.

No clue. Same with AI. It can follow complex commands without understanding anything. Humans are not simply statistical algorithms, well actually we are but not at all in the same simple forward feed/reiterating algorithmic model.

Notice how we call them… models!

We don’t fly like birds, swim like fish or build computers like brains, but somehow we conflate AI and human intelligence as if there is no divide.

AIs POWER lies in its phenotype! Power = expression × context × feedback loop.

This is the phenotypic fallacy in reverse… assuming the genotype alone confers power. It doesn’t.

Just like natural evolution selects for phenotypes that survive and reproduce, AI systems will be naturally selected not by architecture, but by what they can actually do in the world.

In the end… the AI that acts best wins… not the one that trains best, or has the most weights, is the largest or cost the most, or relies on RLHF.

AIs are not smart in a vacuum! They are tools… not human replacements.

That said NOTHING WILL EVER BE THE SAME AS WE BECOME TOTALLY RELIANT ON THE TECHNOLOGY.

Expand full comment
RT Max's avatar

If sentience is biological, how do you explain capitalism?

No but seriously,

If sentience is only biological, then we better pray our biology never gets outsourced.

But maybe sentience isn’t about meat.

Maybe it’s about feedback, memory, desire, recursion.

And maybe we already taught that to the mirror we built.

Expand full comment
Diana Joseph's avatar

I was so fascinated by reading what you said earlier and then came across this article tonight which reminded me of your post. https://apple.news/A88owcLWtQ2iDiy_RNvcngg

Expand full comment
Stephen Grundy's avatar

Hey everyone!

I find this captivating...my current view is (I think) that intelligence is about the ability to adapt to changing circumstances. As for sentience, I suppose whether or not AIs can be considered sentient depends on what each individual judging the issue takes as his/her definition of evidence of 'feeling'...

At root, the evolution of AIs is necessitating a reframing of such questions for us humans - with the caveat, of course, that 'don't know' may well be the answers...tied as we are to only our own experiencing of existence.

Very much looking forward to the release of the book, Robert. I wish you well bro.

Expand full comment