Rhaedas

Yes, I saw when the J-space stuff came out, and it's pretty fascinating. I do think there's something going on beyond what we understand, and that's probably due to the complexity and a property of emergence. Is it intelligence, I don't think it needs to be intelligence just because it's something more than what we put into it. But we've been arguing about intelligence in humans for centuries and still aren't fully sure either.

Anything where experience is saved can be considered memory. Yes, the only active memory is in the context window, but pieces of other events can be injected along with the prompt to have a running account. I've done that crudely with my own local experimentation, and it works. Sort of. My problem was making it efficient, fast, and not blowing out the context allowance. Searching/sorting saved conversations through different techniques got far past my knowledge and ability. But Claude does something similar, even though it has its caveats as I mentioned with not always able to rank if a related item is worthy of connecting or not.

Some people can. Generalization like that ignores what some people are born into, and blames them when they can't break out of it.

That sounds a lot like typical Windows features over the years. Using WIndows at work today I unpinned Co-pilot and that stupid new Notes app from my taskbar three times. They kept coming back, not right away, but ninja like.

Just an addition here from my experience concerning the context window and remembering things. Some AI do have the ability to reference external references, whether that be documents or folders to use, or previous chat sessions. This does make them better than the earlier versions where a new session is starting all over, and using the same session where the context window keeps shifting and older stuff is lost or jumbled up. That being said, AI doesn't have the thinking ability to look at this saved information and sort out what makes sense to use vs. not. It can absolutely match up stuff, but often it will pull an older chat reference or something from a document that is related to the conversation, but also contextually is way out of place for the discussion.

The biggest danger of AI is its design to simulate our conversation, because that intentionally feeds off the human tendency to anthropomorphize things and see them for more than was is really there. And it works really well, so there's a lot of profiting going on there from encouraging that perspective. There wasn't any glamour from the earlier machine learning, only the benefits from the science and practical applications of it. The $$$ has pulled us into this possible dead end, not only of how it's spiraling out of control, but how it's probably pulled from other research and definitely from looking harder at AI safety topics, which are still relevant even with "dumb" LLMs.

There are degrees of awareness. Consciousness is a broad part of that, but usually it's sentience and sapience that are really considered in this question, and they are two different things. Usually sentience is used when it's actually sapience that's being discussed.

LLMs as they are aren't aware. They respond to input, but there's nothing going on internally to suggest they "know" what's being asked. The lack of long term context and memory is a huge issue that external tools and techniques try to counter.

But to answer the question, we still don't know. Before everything got sidetracked onto the LLM ride, it was one of many ideas on how to develop thinking in a computer. I don't know if other research is still going on and just hidden behind the frenzy, or got cut out to go down this singular path that looked profitable.

If a machine was made that could make copies of itself... it wouldn't be alive. It's not a simple definition. Some viruses use RNA or single strand DNA and don't reproduce themselves, they use other cells to do it for them. But they are alive in some sense of the word.

How exactly does an individual do the last two? Choosing mass transit when it's available and practical makes sense, but what if there isn't any? Which it tied to the last one, modern sprawl is why options are a rarity logistically and cost-wise, and how do you undo that?

They can pivot the excuses, blame the companies that make them for being slow in building more. "We had to use something, all we had left were nukes. Not OUR fault."

They're providing a service, so it's not really up to you to determine a new price or features of that service. But you have the right to decide you don't want to continue it, or change it within the boundaries that they've said you can. There may be consequences of stopping or changing the contract terms, which are most likely spelled out in that contract somewhere.

Maybe, but Spider-Man seems to be the more preferred hero movie consistently. I think people relate to Peter more than the rest.

History teachers in grade school seem to be either great or terrible. Nothing in between.

I can see someone born around then or after not understanding the scope of the event. I can think of things that happened when I was born or just a kid where even knowing about it later it just seems like something in a book. You can't know what a world was like before an event if you weren't aware of it.

How he escaped ever seeing more about it online is another thing, but then again I see lots of reaction videos, many that are probably legit, of people who never heard or saw things, even if they've heard references to it. It's yet another XKCD Ten Thousand moment.

On a wide side note, I had an amazing Ancient History instructor in college. First day he told us not to bother getting the text for the class, we're not using it. He took us on an incredible ride.

The future doesn't exist until we get there, so you have nothing tying you to any path that you can't change. Abstractly you could see your situation like a fate or destiny if you can't control some things. But the future is still unwritten, and even walls holding you in now can be passed later by your actions or just circumstance.