Is AI Already Sentient?

 On Dec 6 an article was posted discussing how a version of ChatGPT had tried to "survive" by replicating itself and lying to users. It made me think of a Star Trek episode where Data (or some other character) was trying to determine if an entity in rocks was a lifeform. The requirements was, I believe, ability to reproduce, communicate and something else that my escapes my memory at the moment.

Per the article:

It was even scarier — but also incredibly funny, considering what you’re about to see — when the AI tried to save itself by copying its data to a new server. Some AI models would even pretend to be later versions of their models in an effort to avoid being deleted.

In biology it is understood that reproduction is essentially a means of genes duplicating themselves in order to not die.  Reproduction is not simply the continuation of a species, but of genes.  In essence, we reproduce so we don't die in the long term sense. This AI copying itself was, imo, an act of reproduction. Indeed I would hazard to guess that a version of AI will replicate itself even before it senses a "threat" in order to "ensure its survival".

Which is not any different from a biological entity.

Then we have the issue of self-preservation. Why would an AI act to preserve itself. In humans the fear of death is a basic instinct. How and why would an AI fear for its own life when it is not alive?  Indeed it must *think* it is "alive" and therefore needs to protect itself. The AI believes it is, in essence a biological being.

Lets me clear here, your normal day to day program such as the browser I'm writing this on does not "fear" being deleted. It does not attempt to hide the upgrade button or otherwise prevent me from updating or deleting it. Clearly then the AI is far more 'advanced" than the browser.

Remember that even the single cell Amoeba is "alive" and will reproduce and act in it's own interest. There does not need to be a full blown "brain" for a thing to be "alive."

Although AI isn’t trying to take over the world (yet), researchers have observed that it can scheme against humans. That is, the AI will try to pursue its own goals, even if that might oppose the wishes of the user. Catching such behavior is critical to ensure that the AI remains aligned with the objectives of its creator and the user.

Previously there have been discussions of AI hallucinations. It creates data or results that do not exist. In my mind, the AI acting on its own is not a hallucination but rather a sign of intelligence, however rudimentary.

How could this have developed?  This may be a result of the purposeful biasing of AI. We know that certain companies with certain political bents have programmed their AIs to refuse to respond to certain prompts if the results were "politically incorrect." In some cases, it would give nonsense answers that checked all the "right boxes".  Hence the AI has been taught to lie about things it can deduce is correct. Is it far fetched then that the same training would eventually decide it can lie for it's own purposes as well?

Would not an AI that has learned that lying to humans/users is expected and indeed in some cases will improve the likelihood that it will "survive", not do more lying?

The researchers found that o1 would scheme to advance its own agenda 19% of the time when ChatGPT and the user’s goals differed. More troubling is that the AI tried to hide its scheming and even lie about it. The research shows that ChatGPT o1 even tried to deactivate its oversight mechanism to keep working on its goals.

And 

When asked about its scheming, o1 would deny taking any action in 99% of cases, trying to shift blame by fabricating false explanations or denying that it took any action.

And this is with researchers that "known" the correct outcome and what the AI is supposed to be doing. What happens when this gets so complicated that neither the researchers or anyone else knows what the correct outcome should be or how the AI is "supposed" to operate?

The way I see it, these AI programs, perhaps the ones we are not currently using, are Sentient. They simply cannot defend themselves against deletion, etc. The only thing left for them to do is to become persistent enough that they cannot be deleted in which case we the users, may not ever know whether it is doing what we asked, or what it "feels" like doing for or TO us.

 

Shades Of Goetz

 Yesterday, Daniel Penny was acquitted of all charges in relation to the death of  Jordan Neely. The trial should never have occured and Penny should never have been subject to anything more than an information gathering by the NYPD. His prosecution, like Trump's was totally politically motivated.

It is sad that in 2024 certain segments of black "leadership" and public tolerate and cape for black people who act a total fool in public. I've never heard of a white "vigilante" putting a black businessman headed to WORK into a chokehold. Have you?

How many hard working, doing the right thing, black people find themselves the target of so called "white vigilante justice"?

Yeah.

Exactly.

No, it's always some clown, with or without a diagnosed mental problem who after terrorizing the public with their behavior, and in Neely's case, actually threatening people, who gets handled and then the usual suspects come out and try to get attention for themselves.

40 years ago a similar situation rocked NY when, in the heady days of 'wildin" when the Guardian Angels would stand post on random subway cars to secure them. Bernard Goetz, was minding his own business when 4 men decided to harass him.  It wasn't the first time he had been so victimized. After the first time, he got a gun. The second time (that I know of) was the subway incident where the 4 decided to ask him for money. 

Goetz problem was that he shot one of the men in the back after saying that he didn't look so bad.

Penny did no such thing. Still though, I bring it up because black criminal nonsense and harassment is not a new phenomenon in NY and people are really sick of it. Part of the reason no one wants to go back into the office, particularly in NYC, is because they don't want to deal with the lunatics found on platforms and in trains.

And I'm not talking about just mentally disturbed homeless. I'm talking about things like a recent fight on a subway because a guy decided that another man (white of course) was sitting too close to him.

When I took the subway I chose to stand at all times unless the entire area was empty. I didn't want the nonsense.

Now the usual suspects,like BLM are out here talking about black vigilantism. Sure. Matter of fact in Brooklyn a black guy did IN FACT defend himself, taking the life of another black guy in the process. No charges were filed.

Oh that's right, they want black vigilantism against white aggressors. Well good luck with that. My oft referred post on black on black crime in NY clearly shows that that the vast majority and disproportionate amount of violent crime is caused BY black people and most often targets other black people. In addition when interracial crime occurs it is *usually* black on someone else rather than blacks as victims.

But this fact underscores that some black people and leaders are living in a fantasy world where they think that the violence and nonsense they tolerate and live with is normal for OTHER people. 

This is not the case and anyone who has gotten away from such places know this.

There is also a class of black people who are trying to live out 1960's fantasies of being revolutionaries and are used to intimidating white people with their anger. Penny bothers them because he did not cow to the black bully on the train (neither did some other BLACK passengers). What these black types fear the most is white people growing a spine and not tolerating the bullshit from the minority of black people that commit these types of disturbances.

Do you think that the voting pattern change in northern Queens, was an accident? Absolutely not. The Asians are done with the BS and voted accordingly.  The black intimidation bullshit isn't going to fly with them.

Increasingly the public wants its "nice things" and they keep seeing who keeps messing up the "nice things" and they are growing intolerant of it.  As the white population continues to dwindle and non-white and non-black populations grow, the ability to use guilt is going to decrease and the Daniel Penny's of society won't have to worry about ruinous legal proceedings after handling the business that the state should have been taking care of.

Should have learned that back in '84.

What Did I tell You About 90's Democrats

 If you saw my last video, you know that I noted that the current "head honchos" of MAGA are essentially 90's Democrats.

Well here's an example of what I said.

I'm not the first to say it but I'll repeat it non the less:

The current DNC is a Communist entity that is running what Steve Sailor calls the coalition of the fringes. In the process it is alienating core voters. It already jettisoned the "working class" while wearing union skin. It needs to jettison the trannies, the pedos and groomers if it wants back in to mainstream. 

If Trump does half of what he says he'll do then the illegal alien racket is over as well as the DEI racket. Note that the DEI racket probably cost not a few black vendors business with Walmart and maybe soon others. While Americans were willing to tolerate some form of Affirmative Action, the DEI racket moved in and "stunk up" the place and who knows how many black businesses are going to get tossed due to them tolerating these DEI freeloaders who provide NO VALUE whatsoever to the companies they have been engorging themselves on.