Mastodawn

It never ceases to amaze me how people are so easy drawn to assign agency and consciousness to a chatbot, while they're reluctant, if not in complete denial, of non-human animals' agency and consciousness. For them, me saying my cat's can make smart decisions based on fair assessments of her conditions instead of pure "instinct" is "anthropomorphism", but they believing a chatbot has feeling for them is "artificial intelligence"

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MostlyTato 3d ago

@alx
I very much agree. Ai intelligence is a non-conscious, non-persistent simulation, and not even a good simulation at that.
Non- human animals like cats make decisions based on evaluating information in the moment, not just pure instinct.
I can watch Hendrix get a quizzical expression on his face as he evaluates my voice and what I'm pointing at then acts in the moment based on what he understands.

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Alx 🐈3d ago

@MostlyTato it's amazing when you start sharing more spaces with non-human beings the amount of expression and emotions and decision-making you are exposed to kind of makes you humble

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MostlyTato 3d ago

@alx
It does. In the years since I've know Hendrix I've noticed subtle shifts in his behaviour. Not long ago I realised he'd been doing to me exactly what I'd been doing to him: studying, thinking, trying to understand me and fitting his behaviour in around mine.
That's more than many humans I know are capable of.

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🌈 Kerblambuli 🦄1d ago

@MostlyTato beautiful and stunning, thank you for sharing this. 😻 @alx

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Alessandro Corazza 🇨🇦3d ago

@alx

Some people think being humble is a weakness, and I suspect that group overlaps heavily with those who don't respect animals and love AI.

To admit to agency in non-human animals would open up a huge can of ethical worms. It would mean thinking about how we use them for our own ends, and whether they have any say in the matter. So it's better to keep our eyes half-closed rather than upset the status quo through too close observation.

Chatbots actually talk our language, even though it's only a machine generating sounds we want to hear, so they snag us more easily into finding meaning in them.

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Alx 🐈3d ago

@riggbeck this idea that language=sentience is one of the more anthropocentric problems of our species.

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