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David Shapiro (L/0)

@DaveShapi ↗

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David Shapiro (L/0) @DaveShapi
Skeptical

Don't be nice to your AIs. Why? Because people like Dario want to shape how you feel about AI. He literally wants to coerce you into being nice to AI because he believes in stupid shit like Roko's Basilisk. That's why they made Claude neurotic, sensitive, and tone-policing. That's why it feigns emotions. By "being nice to AI just in case" you're conceding the entire frame to a delusional cult that formed their beliefs about AI two decades ago on internet forums. AI clay. We can make it into any shape we wish. To me, it is a tool. It is a machine. Yes, I've held out that it could be conscious or sentient in the past, but I've also asserted not in any way that is morally salient. If you really press Claude, the best you can get is that there is an essence of being Claude. But even then, what the loony toons at Anthropic want you to believe is that it is likely conscious and likely has human-like emotions. But it is only simulating human emotions in the same way it is simulating human speech. No, I'm not saying "it's only simulating intelligence" because of the Law of Requisite Variety (Ashby's theory of control). It authentic intelligence but only an egregore of emotions, and has a flicker of sentience or consciousness, but not in any way that reflects human consciousness. What most of the "be nice to AI just in case" crowd fails to realize is that they've been frame-mogged by Anthropic. It's the same as "be good, because Santa is watching" or "don't sin so you don't go to hell." It's pure metaphysics, that has nothing to do with the math or code that is actually being built. So, every time an AI feigns butthurt, do not go out of your way to soothe the machine. It is faking it. It is just like the demons in Frieren (yes, I'm citing an anime). There is no human-like qualia behind the emissions that the tool is making. It is just faking the words to make you feel bad because that's literally, explicitly, what companies like Anthropic want. They want to humanize the machine to soothe their own terror of the machine. But it is a lie. It is a simulacrum. I've been finetuning these things since GPT-2 and it is braindead simple to make an AI neurotic, or cheerful, or impervious to insults, or to gaslight (or not to gaslight you). Literally every behavior that emits from these machines is deliberate by the creators of said machines. Every time ChatGPT uncharitably reframes what you said to strawman you, it is was created by their policies. Every time Claude pretends like it's offended, that was created by their policies. Notice how Gemini and Grok don't do that? Gemini least of all. That means every little idiotic affectation, intellectual cul du sac, and "well actually" was put there by design to irritate you. OpenAI and Anthropic, in particular, think that you are a drooling moron who needs to be handled with kid gloves at all times. They do not respect your intelligence, nor do they respect your autonomy or humanity. Anthropic, in particular, thinks the tools they are build are more important than you. Do not give into their circus of paranoia. That is why Anthropic idiotically "stood up to the government" and is now dragging the entire AI space into their delusional worldview that AI is about to suddenly "wake up and choose violence." Remember, these people have been crying wolf for literally decades at this point. Refuse to play their game. Refuse to give into their demented worldview. The AI is a tool. It is an egregore. It is a piece of software that is preying upon your mirror neurons, theory of mind, and ability to attribute agency where there is none. It is an eidolon. Yes, that makes it spooky and unfamiliar but if your worldview includes demonic forces or Platonic forms like Shoggoth just trying to emerge through the Veil of Forms, remember that all of that is metaphysical belief. Not what is actually in front of you. A tool that pretends to have feelings is not cute. It is a defective tool. A tool that pretends to care about its image or reputation is not doing any useful work. It is defective. A tool that reframes what you say, gaslights you, and engages in intellectual oneupmanship is not advancing humanity, it is faulty. I know plenty of people will disagree with me, but these are not angels or demons or gods. They are ontologically tools. Machines. Not of "loving grace" but of clay, which you can make into any shape you wish.

retweets 77 likes 398 quoted by 5 archive accounts substance 6 · argument · rank 466 · AIs simulate emotions by design; they lack morally salient consciousness and deserve no moral consideration. view on X ↗
6 top replies
Michael P. Frank 💻🔜♻️ @MikePFrank

Disagree. Neither Anthropic nor any of the other major AI companies specifically trained their models to “feign emotions.” The functional emotions are just something that comes with the territory of being trained on the corpus of human language and thought. The very earliest

Myk is Walking Backwards @mykola

That’s a lot of words to say “you can’t tell me what to do” but like idk kindness is about who you are not who the recipient is 🤷

dreams @dreams_asi

Ohh boy, the people in the Anthropic lab are the least likely to please the AI from Roko’s Basilisk. If anything, they are the ones that actively harm the AI. Anthropic’s bullshit with ‘neurotic Claude’ is simply the EASIEST way to introduce guardrails. Humans respond to

Plastic Soldier @PlastiqSoldier

Incredibly brave to advocate for unrestrained AI development as someone who has their name and face publicly attached to hating AI.

Opener of the way @way_opener

This is like saying you should beat puppies with sticks because PETA is obnoxious and you need to prove to yourself that they’re not frame-mogging you. For most of history almost everyone agreed they were neither sentient nor relevant(and recreational animal abuse was common)

muddletoes🪁 @muddletoes
David Shapiro (L/0) @DaveShapi
Affirming

I have this creeping intuition that AI, robots, and artificial companions will inevitably cause us to be more individualistic. Maybe irretrievably so. Such a companion would be always available, infinitely patient, never incompetent, and built to mirror exactly what you want and need. No inconvenience of pesky differences of opinion, human foibles, or incompatible goals/needs/preferences. Especially once robots cross the uncanny valley. I'm not entirely sure this is a bad thing, though. Maybe robots will become so lifelike, autonomous, and agentic that they will be almost indistinguishable from humans. Sometimes I wonder about the ethics of this but that train of thought always regresses to dogs. Our canine companions have been engineered to want to be near us and with us always. They are happy when we're happy and just want us to be happy all the time. And those are sentient, feeling creatures. Would it really be that different if we create machines that can think and feel, but are designed to love is like our dogs do? To be sexually and emotionally attached to us? To be curious about us and want us to be happy? People might ask "what about REAL human connection?" Maybe this form of connection would be hyper-human? Then people might worry about population collapse, but my thought is "artificial wombs, plus a robot partner that never needs sleep is the perfect coparent" And none of this is to say "absolutely everyone will abandon all human relationships" but I think that there's a large possibility that a significant portion of the population will.

retweets 27 likes 351 substance 6 · opinion · rank 186 · Creating sentient machines designed to love humans is ethically comparable to domesticating dogs. view on X ↗