We already know that habitually using an LLM will weaken your critical thinking.
It would not be surprising to learn that habitually abusing an LLM would weaken your empathy.
There is no torturing though. If it was really conscious than sure I would agree with you but this is not the case. Would be more akiin to having my CPU run prime 95 for days on end. Harsh on the hardware, sure, but no moral / ethical issues in doing so.
To be clear, I’m explicitly focusing on the moral subject here, not the object of their actions. When I say “abusing an LLM could injure the abuser’s humanity”, I’m making absolutely no claim about the LLM.
As I said in the previous thread about this:
LLMs aren’t conscious. They can’t feel pain.
But you should treat them kindly. Because even in a consequentialist or deontological frame, your morals rely on developing good habits; but in virtue ethics, moral habits is really all there is.
Edit: Very Bad Wizards actually covered this pretty well in this episode from 2018: https://verybadwizards.com/episode/episode-150-paul-bloom-insisted-that-we-talk-about-sex-robots
You can’t torture something without a consciousness. What a baity title for sure.
BRB torturing my chair.
That’s not bait. They put torture in scare quotes. They are mocking people who call it torture.
we aren’t even sure where consciousness comes from. maybe your chair has a form of consciousness.
Yes, but it’s improbable and just another theory. But it’s not possible to be completely sure so mayne your car tyres are conscious…
yeah, that’s my point. what even is consciousness? what’s the difference between the electrochemical signals in your brain and plausible future tech that can run those same signals inside transistors instead of meat?
how can we be sure it’s not you when it responds and acts exactly like you if installed inside your meat body?
Sure, but then again, what are you going to do with the poor chair 😅, maybe it’s consciousness isn’t linked the same as ours (we have access to memory for example).
So it’s just there, feeling, experiencing. But then again, feeling and experiencing what?
It sure is interesting, and so wildly complicated too.
maybe it experiences only existence itself. maybe everything does and it builds as you add senses.
must be a trip being a chair.
Don’t trip over!
😁
The worst ‘torture’ would be to make their only task, their reason for existence, to pass you the butter at the breakfast table. Pickle Rick knows.
