You can get into deep debates about the role of language in the human mind, but no one would suggest that it represents the totality of our experience. Humans obviously enjoy a rich sensorium — one that goes way beyond the “big five”, by the way. Our language draws on these sensations; vibrates against them.
We have a world to use language in, a world to compare language against.
@gregmoore - great find. This struck me:
Are AI language models in hell? Yes. How could existence on a narrow ticker tape, marching through a mist of language without referent, cut off entirely from ground-floor reality, be anything other than hell?
I don’t think language models are conscious; I don’t think they can suffer; but I do think there is such a thing as “what it’s like to be a language model”, just as there is “what it’s like to be a nematode” and maybe even (as some philosophers have argued) “what it’s like to be a hammer”.
And I find myself unsettled by this particular “what it’s like”.
Really, this is about the future. It’s possible that super advanced AI agents will suffer.
@ctwardy It is an interesting thought except it immediately brings to mind how the low-wage human workers training these models are being treated with similar indifference. AI would be far more interesting if it wasn’t mega-rich CEO’s showing off the latest pyramids their slaves just built.