Blog: update AI post

src/blog/draft_ai-is-in-the-cave.cfg.php

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+<?php
+$title = "AI Is in the Cave";
+$description = "Delving into the (apparent) mystery of Large Language Models (a.k.a. AI) and why none of them are actually intelligent.";
+$created = "2025-03-13";
+$updated = "2025-03-13";
+?>

src/blog/draft_ai-is-in-the-cave.html.php

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+<?php
+require 'config.php';
+require 'draft_ai-is-in-the-cave.cfg.php';
+require 'templates/blog-header.php';
+?>
+<p>
+For your average technological layman most digital technologies seem to pretty
+much be magic. Somehow a bunch of ones and zeros can be transformed into a movie
+which is streamed over cables and even thin-air until it reaches my tablet and
+is transformed to something actually recognizable on the screen. So it should
+come as no surprise that when it comes to Large Language Models (LLMs, a.k.a.
+AI) the usual amazement and mystification of technology reached new peaks as
+folks started speculating that perhaps this is truly the point where computers
+can pass the Turing Test, and the more enthusiastic among these would go
+further and say that perhaps even the machines could gain
+conciousness<sup><a href="#n1" >(1)</a></sup> if they have not already, all
+ultimately raising the question of whether we have reached the point of
+Singularity.<sup><a href="#n2" >(2)</a></sup> In fact, we could say that the
+capabilities of LLMs are so amazing that even some of the CEOs of these
+companies are suggesting they either have or may soon truly achieve
+consciousness.<sup><a href="#r1" >[1]</a></sup> However, if you were to ask
+these people how we can know that LLMs have reached this point the test
+provided is generally a very unsophisticated one: if it can ape human behavior,
+it must have an intellect at the same level as a human.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, for anyone who has some familiarity with Pro-Life apologetics, this kind
+of reasoning to determine personhood sounds extremely familiar, but is now
+being applied in the reverse. It is the attribution of personhood on the basis
+of what the thing <em>can do</em> in a specific stage of its development rather
+than on the basis of what <em>kind of being</em> the thing is. In the case of
+the unborn it is used to claim they do not have personhood because at that
+stage of their development they cannot do certain things, while in the case of
+LLMs it is used to claim they do have personhood because they can do these
+things (at least those things which we associate with the intellect). All this
+because our modern materialist culture cannot actually understand the concept
+of a <em>kind</em> of being, for all being is merely an assortment of atoms
+that just so happen to organize themselves in such a way that a conscious being
+is formed. Thus, to form other conscious beings all you have to do is put the
+same kinds of atoms together in the same pattern and you can reproduce life!
+And not any sort of life, but rational life at that. Furthermore, in the case
+of LLMs, it would seem that it is not even necessary for it to be the same
+kinds of atoms in the same pattern at all, but instead we can replace neurons
+and alike with transistors and other electronic elements, coded to interact
+with each other to do the same thing human beings have been doing for tens of
+thousands of years, and what pretty much most animals have been able to do as
+well: pattern recognition and replication.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The fact of the matter is that LLMs may seem, from a purely superficial
+standpoint, like a child who is slowly learning to speak. In the past few years
+we have seen drastic improvements as many of the tell-tale signs have been
+smoothed out of the algorithms. But even as they become indistinguishable from
+the product of actual human work, 
+</p>
+
+<h2>The Man Who "Learned" Chinese</h2>
+
+<h2>Here be Demons</h2>
+
+<h2>Hammers Are for Nails</h2>
+
+<h2>Resources</h2>
+<h3>Notes</h3>
+<ol class="notes" >
+	<li id="n1" >
+		Some people confuse the Turing Test to be an indicator that a machine
+		<em>has</em> reached conciousness, but this is a misunderstanding. The
+		test merely indicates that in a blind-folded scenario a human cannot
+		tell whether they are talking to another human or a machine, usually via
+		a text prompt.
+	</li>
+	<li id="n2" >
+		Singularity in this context is understood as a point-of-no-return past
+		which the advances of technological complexity are beyond our control.
+	</li>
+</ol>
+<h3>References</h3>
+<ol class="refs" >
+	<li id="r1" ><a href="https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/03/anthropics-ceo-wonders-if-future-ai-should-have-option-to-quit-unpleasant-tasks/" target="_blank" >Anthropic CEO floats idea of giving AI a “quit job” button, sparking skepticism - Ars Technica</a></li>
+</ol>
+<?php
+require 'templates/blog-footer.php';
+?>