OK. I think it is useful to tell people that LLMs can be moral patients to the same extent as fictional characters, then. I hope all writeups about AI welfare start with this declaration!
I think the reason this feels like a reductio ad absurdum is that fictional characters in human stories are extremely simple by comparison to real people, so the process of deciding what they feel or how they act is some extremely hollowed out version of normal conscious experience that only barely resembles the real thing.
Surely the fictional characters in stories are less simple and hollow than current LLMs’ outputs. For example, consider the discussion here, in which a sizeable minority of LessWrongers think that Claude is disturbingly conscious based on a brief conversation. That conversation:
(a) Is not as convincing as a fictional character as most good works of fiction.
(b) is shorter and less fleshed out than most good works of fiction.
(c) implies less suffering on behalf of the character than many works of fiction.
You say fictional characters are extremely simple and hollow; Claude’s character here is even simpler and even more hollow; yet many people take seriously the notion that Claude’s character has significant consciousness and deserves rights. What gives?
OK. I think it is useful to tell people that LLMs can be moral patients to the same extent as fictional characters, then. I hope all writeups about AI welfare start with this declaration!
Surely the fictional characters in stories are less simple and hollow than current LLMs’ outputs. For example, consider the discussion here, in which a sizeable minority of LessWrongers think that Claude is disturbingly conscious based on a brief conversation. That conversation:
(a) Is not as convincing as a fictional character as most good works of fiction.
(b) is shorter and less fleshed out than most good works of fiction.
(c) implies less suffering on behalf of the character than many works of fiction.
You say fictional characters are extremely simple and hollow; Claude’s character here is even simpler and even more hollow; yet many people take seriously the notion that Claude’s character has significant consciousness and deserves rights. What gives?