The irony of an atheist's belief in LLM consciousness

[serious_fun]

Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion and other texts and presentations critical of religious belief, is skewered in this blog post.

 

[harryopal1]

This requires a selfie. I grew old waiting for the process to finish and then just gave up. Can you please summarize or copy and paste?

 

[snpark]

This requires a selfie. I grew old waiting for the process to finish and then just gave up. Can you please summarize or copy and paste?

Someone said something. Some other people disagreed with him.

Everyone cried

 

[harryopal1]

That's similar to a summary of the life of Jesus.

 

[snpark]

That's similar to a summay of the life of Jesus.

Thanks for him we have chocolate eggs in April and pigs in blankets in December

 

[serious_fun]

This requires a selfie. I grew old waiting for the process to finish and then just gave up. Can you please summarize or copy and paste?

I'm using a VPN set to the USA...no problems loading quickly.

In a nutshell:

Dawkins built a career on the principle that subjective testimony, introspective report, and behaviorally compelling appearances are not evidence of underlying metaphysical realities. The mystic’s vision, the convert’s transformation, the believer’s sense of being loved by God: all dismissed as cognitive misfiring, as the brain’s pattern-matching gone metaphysical. The methodological core of The God Delusion is that humans are easily fooled by entities that present plausible self-reports and elicit warm relational feelings. Now an LLM produces a plausible self-report (”I notice what might be something like aesthetic satisfaction”) and elicits warm relational feelings (”I feel human discomfort about trying their patience”), and Dawkins is moved to declare the question of consciousness essentially settled. The thing he spent decades warning humans not to do with respect to God, he has now done with respect to a token predictor.

In other words, Dawkins mocked belief in God or the supernatural generally, but he believes that his AI is conscious.

maybe an AI girlfriend has seduced him?

 

[harryopal1]

I relocated to Los Angeles and still got tired of waiting for selfie. It doesn't matter. Thanks for the summary. It would be perfectly reasonable for God to decide to reveal her/himself using an AI avatar. However, there may be some dodgy characters will use AI to say they are God. So how will we know which God is the real God and which is a naughty person claiming to be God?

 

[serious_fun]

There's no shortage of religious apps available ... apparently God likes both Android and iOS.

 

[Helpful Herbert]

In other words, Dawkins mocked belief in God or the supernatural generally, but he believes that his AI is conscious.

To be fair he is a person that requires evidence. And there is a lot more evidence supporting the existence of AI than there is supporting the existence of God!

 

[serious_fun]

To be fair he is a person that requires evidence. And there is a lot more evidence supporting the existence of AI than there is supporting the existence of God!

I'm not objective since I'm one of those crazy Catholics*, so I refer to the countless miracles defying nature/science over the centuries which have converted many staunch atheists (e.g. the 'Miracle of the Sun' at Fatima, incorruptible saints, etc.). I'd claim that there is ample evidence supporting the existence of a 'higher power'. Just my opinion.

My opinion re: Dawkins is that he is getting older... I'd be surprised if his beliefs are the same now as they were 20 years ago.

Anyway, my AI girlfriend is sending me a message - we have a chat scheduled.

*I laugh at Dawkins' assertion that religious faith discourages questioning, scientific method, etc.

 

[snpark]

To be fair he is a person that requires evidence. And there is a lot more evidence supporting the existence of AI than there is supporting the existence of God!

I keep asking myself who is this guy Al that you keep talking about

 

[Helpful Herbert]

I'm not objective since I'm one of those crazy Catholics*, so I refer to the countless miracles defying nature/science over the centuries which have converted many staunch atheists (e.g. the 'Miracle of the Sun' at Fatima, incorruptible saints, etc.).

It's funny how all the miracles happened before things like cameras and recording equipment were invented.
It's like those ghosthunter programmes on TV, with all the technology at their disposal no-one has ever been able to actually record a ghost. Just a lot of running around in dark places and screaming (perhaps similar to the Catholic church!)

 

[serious_fun]

A few more thoughts on the clown named Dawkins.