Frankly, I’m not sure how I would answer this question.
GradualImprovement
Karma: 32
Yair, you are correct.
Point 2) is why I wrote the story. In a conversation about the potential for AI rights, some friends and I came to the disconcerting conclusion that it’s kinda impossible to justify your own consciousness (to other people). That unnerving thought prompted the story, since if we ourselves can’t justify our consciousness, how can we reasonably expect an AI to do so?
I’d like to retcon that the keyboard appears flat on the desk cube.
Alternatively, I imagine the character struggling to type, sweating about being stuck in a box forever and frustrated by the lack of ergonomic typing options as they frantically try and communicate as fast as possible with the Proctor.
The Consciousness Box
I think your claim that China and the US are the biggest markets due to being homogeneous is flawed. The United States is far from homogenous; in fact, it is on the way to becoming a minority majority country. This is quite different from China’s demographic makeup.
To be clear—GPT-4 is the entity that said “that’s a fair point.” :P
I’m aware that ‘chatbots’ have existed for half a century, and that LLMs are more than just a chatbot. But are you asserting that there are conscious chatbots right now? Sure, LLMs represent a step-change in the ability of ‘chatbots’. But I’m not sure that it’s a category error if there in fact are no conscious chatbots at this time.