this post was submitted on 28 May 2024
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Fuck AI
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I mean my position that you hold a bigoted world view is based on reasoning though. You keep comparing autistic people to AI and saying we don't have reasons for our beliefs, as evidenced by the next paragraph:
So you essentially keep calling autistic people less than human, then wondering why saying "I am sorry" once isn't good enough. It's like how you used the "I am only human" line earlier, as if being a bigot is just a simple mistake. Either this is bad faith reasoning or your so bigoted as to be blind to the implications of what you are saying. Like I said try describing any other marginalized group of people the way you describe autistic people and see how it sounds.
I literally have the diagnosis to prove it, but clearly evidence doesn't matter to you. I should have realized this sooner. Then again I shouldn't expect anything better from a community who's whole idea is bases on complaining about AI. Sure lots of misuses of AI, and it sucks to have your job taken away in a shitty capitalist world, but those are human problems, not AI or technology problems. They have human solutions. Becoming a neo-luddite solves nothing.
Yes well done you understand how LLMs work. There are other systems that don't work this way and do continuous learning, like a human. We have already discussed this anyway.
Yes, it is based on reasoning, but it’s not from first principles, rather, it’s from your a priori assumptions that anyone who says anything even mildly critical about autistic people is doing so because of bigotry.
Meanwhile, I have repeatedly stated that this was not at all my intention, but that my goal was in fact demonstrating that even someone like you, with an official diagnosis of autism, has the ability to behave in ways that LLMs currently do not have.
If you were reasoning from first principles, you would at least consider this alternative as a potentially valid hypothesis, and compare the evidence I’ve given in support of it to the evidence that’s informed by your assumption of bigotry.
No, I keep calling LLMs less than human, and I compared their behavior to that of humans with a specific neurodevelopmental disorder (i.e. autism), which is commonly characterized by exhibiting very similar patterns of behavior, namely deficits in reciprocal social communication, along with restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior (this is straight from the Wikipedia page on autism BTW, before you accuse me of spreading misinformation again), all of which you have amply demonstrated in this conversation, for instance, in your repeated insistence that the only valid explanation for my behavior is bigotry and that the only possible remedy is for me to give up my position and agree with you, to say sorry as many times as it takes for you to believe me, and to make promises of never repeating my behavior ever again.
I’m sorry, but I can’t do that. It restricts my freedom too much and it interferes with my curiosity, because it essentially is a demand of indefinite slavery and servitude to your expectations. You are, in a way, demanding that I behave more autistically myself in order for you to feel better about your own autism. Clearly, that will never cure you of your condition, and perhaps that’s not what you’re after anyways, but I’m certainly not going to help make the world more autistic so you can feel better about it.
Now here’s what I CAN offer: first, if this conversation is excessively difficult and painful for you to have, you can just say so and I’ll promise to stop. I won’t come after you and annoy you if I see you around this forum (or anywhere else on Lemmy), and I can put you on my blocklist to ensure it doesn’t happen by accident (or you can block me if you prefer to be more in control of that, up to you).
Alternatively, we can continue this conversation, and you can look for evidence of whether my behavior is in fact congruent with my stated intention that my goal was not to offend you, but to demonstrate that even someone like you, with an official diagnosis of autism, has abilities that exceed that of an LLM.
If you want, I can even offer an ongoing dialogue (via private messages perhaps) to share some strategies I’ve learned to deal with and overcome autism because while I’ve never received an official diagnosis, I have had many of the same symptoms in the past (still sometimes do), and I’m fairly certain I would have likely been diagnosed with it if my parents had bothered enough to get me to a shrink.
But either way, I am not going to let you abuse me for having had a slip of the tongue and saying something mildly offensive about autistic people. And please don’t drag the rest of the forum into it either because it’s not their fault that I accidentally misspoke.
Ah, now I get it. We aren't actually working from the same framework. By reasoning from first principles I take it you mean rationality/logic? The problem with that is that mathematics, logic, reasoning, and so on can't actually prove anything. If we used logic we can determine that no evidence can be definite as things like dreams, hallucinations, illusions and so on exist. The only conclusion you can really reach is that perhaps everything is made up, and you can't be certain anything is real in other words solipsism. That's where "first principles" come in I guess. By first principles I assume you mean assumptions, as you won't get anywhere with logic without some kind of assumption. Since I don't know what your first principles are I am not going to be able to follow your reasoning, as if I would probably be starting with a different set of assumptions about the world. Generally though I don't believe logic/reasoning is a good tool for understanding people and things related to people like politics. It's good for bounded contexts with a well known state or rules like computers, or physical phenomenon. Depending on your worldview humans are either too badly known and too complex for another human to perform logic on them, or are simply not logical to begin with. Since it's not an effective strategy it's not something I am interested in using on people. I suspect a lot of disagreements where people are screaming at each other that the other isn't being logical come from having different assumptions rather than one being illogical.
Okay now you are saying thing with at least some degree of scientific evidence. The evidence for everything else you have said up until now has been pretty much "I made it the fuck up". I mean to be fair psychology isn't a real science and diagnostic categories are largely based on intuition rather than neurobiological evidence, so you aren't that far off. The LLMs I have worked with have been much more demure, they fairly easily admit they made a mistake (and can probably be coerced into doing so even if they actually haven't), and are willing to reason about political positions very different from their own liberal bias. Pretty much the opposite of stubbornness and debate bros. By being stubborn I am if anything behaving less like an LLM, as LLMs haven't been stubborn in my experience. Maybe you have had a different experience, if so I would like to here it.
Also the restricted and repetitive behavior thing is about special interests/hyperfixation. It's not actually applicable here as far as I know.
Was it ever in doubt that an autistic person can beat an LLM? It wasn't for me. The fact you think it was is kind of offensive in and of itself.
I am not trying to restrict your freedom of speech here. What you do have to understand is that speech has consequences. For example I can do what I have been doing here and argue against you. Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences.
I don't think you have a modern understanding of neurodiversity or of neurotypes. A lot things that were once thought to be limitations of autistic people weren't limitations of autistic people at all. For example it was thought we lacked empathy by some psychologists (and still is) even though now we know of the double empathy problem. It's a incompatibility/communication issue, not an ability one. I would suggest you do some reading, then you might understand what I am getting at. It's also understood there are some limitations neurotypical people have that autistic people do not. There was actually an interesting study done which showed that NT people don't behave morally when they aren't being watched, unlike autistic people who behave the same regardless of if they are being watched or not. The thing you said about most people behaving like NPCs is potentially one of those limitations of neurotypicals I am talking about here.
It's a shame you haven't been evaluated if that's something you wished for. Do you mind telling me what symptoms you think you might have? I understand if that's not something you want to discuss publicly or with me in particularly.
There is also a tactic where people ask if someone needs help in a disingenuous way as a form of ad-hominem attack. Essentially calling some crazy while trying to make it sound like they are legitimately concerned. I don't think you are doing this, at least not intentionally, but I hope you understand that this could be read this way.
Have you been using text to speech? None of this on my side at least involves tongues or speaking. Yes I know it's a turn of phrase, but it's a bad one. With a text forum you can reread, edit, think about what you are saying much more easily than real life speech. I legitimately don't think they are comparable in behavioral or social terms, and there are social phenomenon that happen online or in writing that don't in other areas of life.
You also haven't just said one offensive thing, when pressed you kept saying offensive things. It's also not just that they are offensive either, it's that they seem to be based on misinformation and you haven't given any evidence for them either.
Also abuse you? Calling someone a bigot isn't abuse. Pushing you down the stairs would be abuse. Calling you racial slurs would be abuse. Psychological manipulation would be abuse. I am not trying to do any of those here. If anything you are unintentionally abusing me.
If you want to take this to DMs that's fine by me. While I don't necessarily respect this forum (I mean it's titled "Fuck AI" for goodness sake), I do understand not wanting to waste other people's time and that this conversation is probably no longer relevant to this forum.
(Looks like I hit the character limit for responses, continuing here from the previous comment)
Perhaps it's a bit like asking someone to coffee after smashing a brick through their window, but I hope I have demonstrated enough sincerity so far as to not be credibly accused of being a troll.
That's an interesting thought, but no, I have not, and I did indeed just use the term metaphorically. Yes, I am aware that this isn't realtime communication and I can in fact take the time to try and edit each comment to complete perfection, but I find that more often than not, when doing so, I end up spending too much time getting lost in the weeds and ultimately never sending it because there's always more to say or a better way to say it.
At some point, you either have to decide that what you have is good enough (and be prepared to deal with the consequences in case it wasn't), or you'll end up with analysis paralysis. I have a lot of experience with the latter, so I'm simply choosing the former more often because that gives me the opportunity to practice a skill that needs improving.
Again, I apologize for that, but reactive behavior can be difficult to control, as I'm sure you are aware of. Unfortunately I cannot promise to never say anything offensive without shutting down completely, the best I can do is try to work twice as hard on demonstrating earnesty and goodwill.
If making a comparison between autism and AI is abuse in your book, I don't see how calling someone a bigot isn't. I may have unintentionally said something bigoted, but that doesn't mean that bigotry is all there is to me. It's dehumanizing in the same way, especially since I immediately offered a correction and an apology.
Let's keep it public for now, for the sake of accountability. Also, while I agree that the chance is small that anyone else here is actually interested in following this discourse, it's certainly not zero. It used to be one of my favorite things about the Internet when I was younger to stumble on interesting rabbit holes like this one, and I have some fond memories of reading long essays, blog posts, or discourses about topics that I only had a superficial interest in, but that ended up completely changing my perspective on things, and I hope to achieve something similar here.