Thanks! And good call, sorry for missing that one—added it into the post :-)
Zoe Williams
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Looks like YouGov had the same concern and ran a second poll where they split respondents into three groups for that question (one with no framing, one with the support framing from the post above, and one with a support + oppose framing):
https://today.yougov.com/topics/technology/articles-reports/2023/04/15/ai-nuclear-weapons-world-war-humanity-poll
The simple / no context framing (“Would you support or oppose a six-month pause on some kinds of AI development?”) got the lowest support, but still pretty high at 58%.
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Fixed, thanks!
Post summary (feel free to suggest edits!):
Argues that statements by large language models that seem to report their internal life (eg. ‘I feel scared because I don’t know what to do’), isn’t straightforward evidence either for or against the sentience of that model. As an analogy, parrots are probably sentient and very likely feel pain. But when they say ‘I feel pain’, that doesn’t mean they are in pain.
It might be possible to train systems to more accurately report if they are sentient, via removing any other incentives for saying conscious-sounding things, and training them to report their own mental states. However, this could advance dangerous capabilities like situational awareness, and training on self-reflection might also be what ends up making a system sentient.
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Interesting question, thanks for adding this! I don’t have any background in animal welfare research or the plant/cell based meat area beyond reading & chatting with people, but popped some thoughts below regardless:
My leaning would be that having both is better than just one, to provide increased choice and options to move away from traditional meats. I’m not sure I buy the fourth point—while there will be some competition between plant-based and cell-based meat, they also both compete with the currently much larger traditional meat market, and I think there are some consumers who would eat plant-based but not cell-based and vice versa. Not only taste, look, feel, and cost are relevant but also the optics and cultural connotations of each, which are quite different.
In terms of proportion of promotion efforts to each, I’m really not sure. A strategy there should probably look at how developed each tech is (so more plant-based meat promotion earlier on), uptake rates and effect of promotion (and if there’s a ceiling hit where we struggle to get further uptake in a population, suggesting a new option is needed for those remaining), populations promoted to and their unique concerns / likelihood to uptake one or the other, and any tipping points or opposition that needs to be countered in a timely way for something to remain viable in a location or to get past legislative hurdles.
(Also sorry for the late reply! I was on vacation last week)
Thanks, this is great feedback to hear, even if things are closing shop for a while.