←back to thread

LLM Inevitabilism

(tomrenner.com)
1613 points SwoopsFromAbove | 6 comments | 15 Jul 25 04:35 UTC | HN request time: 0.911s | source | bottom
Show context
keiferski ◴[15 Jul 25 06:08 UTC] No.44568304[source]▶
One of the negative consequences of the “modern secular age” is that many very intelligent, thoughtful people feel justified in brushing away millennia of philosophical and religious thought because they deem it outdated or no longer relevant. (The book A Secular Age is a great read on this, btw, I think I’ve recommended it here on HN at least half a dozen times.)

And so a result of this is that they fail to notice the same recurring psychological patterns that underly thoughts about how the world is, and how it will be in the future - and then adjust their positions because of this awareness.

For example - this AI inevitabilism stuff is not dissimilar to many ideas originally from the Reformation, like predestination. The notion that history is just on some inevitable pre-planned path is not a new idea, except now the actor has changed from God to technology. On a psychological level it’s the same thing: an offloading of freedom and responsibility to a powerful, vaguely defined force that may or may not exist outside the collective minds of human society.

replies(15): >>44568532 #>>44568602 #>>44568862 #>>44568899 #>>44569025 #>>44569218 #>>44569429 #>>44571000 #>>44571224 #>>44571418 #>>44572498 #>>44573222 #>>44573302 #>>44578191 #>>44578192 #
evantbyrne ◴[15 Jul 25 13:34 UTC] No.44571000[source]▶
I'm pretty bearish on the idea that AGI is going to take off anytime soon, but I read a significant amount of theology growing up and I would not describe the popular essays from e.g., LessWrong as religious in nature. I also would not describe them as appearing poorly read. The whole "look they just have a new god!" is a common trope in religious apologetics that is usually just meant to distract from the author's own poorly constructed beliefs. Perhaps such a comparison is apt for some people in the inevitable AGI camp, but their worst arguments are not where we should be focusing.
replies(7): >>44571085 #>>44571353 #>>44571601 #>>44572817 #>>44572976 #>>44574689 #>>44576484 #
miningape ◴[15 Jul 25 14:09 UTC] No.44571353[source]▶
While it's a fair criticism, just because someone doesn't believe in a god doesn't mean the religious hardware in their brain has been turned off. It's still there and operational - I don't think it's a surprise that this hardware's attention would then be automatically tuned to a different topic.

I think you can also see this in the intensification of political discussion, which has a similar intensity to religious discussions 100-200+ years ago (i.e. Protestant reformation). Indicating that this "religious hardware" has shifted domains to the realm of politics. I believe this shift can also be seen through the intense actions and rhetoric we saw in the mid-20th century.

You can also look at all of these new age "religions" (spiritualism, horoscopes, etc.) as that religious hardware searching for something to operate on in the absence of traditional religion.

replies(3): >>44571788 #>>44572896 #>>44579463 #
svieira ◴[15 Jul 25 14:55 UTC] No.44571788[source]▶
Which then leads you to the question "who installed the hardware"?
replies(1): >>44571949 #
1. cootsnuck ◴[15 Jul 25 15:09 UTC] No.44571949[source]▶
No, that lead you to that question.

It leads me to the question, "Is it really 'religious hardware' or the same ol' 'make meaning out of patterns' hardware we've had for millenia that has allowed us to make shared language, make social constructs, mutually believe legal fictions that hold together massive societies, etc.?"

replies(3): >>44572539 #>>44572745 #>>44574460 #
2. jffhn ◴[15 Jul 25 16:00 UTC] No.44572539[source]▶
Or: the hardware that generates beliefs about how things should be - whether based on religious or ideological dogma -, as opposed to science which is not prescriptive and can only describe how things are.
3. yubblegum ◴[15 Jul 25 16:17 UTC] No.44572745[source]▶
Your entire outlook is based on an assumption. The assumption that 'emergence of meaning' is a 2nd order epiphenomena of an organic structure. The 1st order epiphenomena in your view is of course consciousness itself.

None of these assumptions can be proven, yet like the ancients looking at the sky and seeing a moving sun but missing a larger bit of the big picture you now have a 'theory of mind' that satisfies your rational impluses given a poor diet of facts and knowledge. But hey, once you manage to 'get into orbit' you get access to more facts and then the old 'installed hardware' theory of yours starts breaking down.

The rational position regarding these matters is to admit "we do not have sufficient information and knowledge to make conclusive determinations based on reason alone". Who knows, one day Humanity may make it to the orbit and realize the 'simple and self apparent idea' of "everything revoles around the Earth" is false.

replies(1): >>44574357 #
4. dmbche ◴[15 Jul 25 18:28 UTC] No.44574357[source]▶
I've enjoyed reading the books of Peter Watts (Blindsight, free on their backlog, sci-fi), on seemingly this subject
replies(1): >>44575521 #
5. ryandv ◴[15 Jul 25 18:41 UTC] No.44574460[source]▶
> It leads me to the question, "Is it really 'religious hardware' or the same ol' 'make meaning out of patterns' hardware

They are the same thing. Call it "religion" or "meaning making," both activities can be subsumed by the more encompassing concept and less-loaded term of "psycho-technology," [0] or non-physical tools for the mind.

Language is such a psycho-technology, as are social constructs such as law; legal fictions are given memorable names and personified into "religious" figures, such as Libra from astrology or Themis/Lady Justice from Greek mythology.

Ancient shamans and priests were proto-wetware engineers, designing software for your brain and providing tools for making meaning out of the world. In modern day we now have psychologists, "social commentators" (for lack of a better term and interpreted as broadly as possible), and, yes, software engineers, amongst other disciplines, playing a similar role.

[0] https://www.meaningcrisis.co/episode-1-introduction/

6. yubblegum ◴[15 Jul 25 20:32 UTC] No.44575521{3}[source]▶
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindsight_(Watts_novel) (will check it out. thanks!)