I’ve always found people who freak out about AI sentience extremely pathetic. Just absolute baboons who get impressed by mundane shit. I first came across it with the whole “roko’s basilisk” shit and immediately dismissed them as morons, and many years later I’m still validated
The basilisk thing made me viscerally angry for years because it was such a stupid idea, and because it was just a re-write of Pascal's Wager by people with pretenses of intellectualism who were ignorant of some of the most basic philsophical concepts. It's just a perfect example of the bazinga "Dumb guy's idea of a smart guy" where these tech bros keep re-inventing trains but worse bc they just don't know what they don't know and are too incurious and arrogant to ask.
I usually do a unit on thought experiments in my into to philosophy class, and every single time I've ever showed them this one, the response is universally "that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard." The kids are alright.
Yeah, I'm worried because the mundane tasks it could automate are good ways to justify hiring on more junior people to gain experience. Which would make the fresh out of college job market even more insane, but people are treating chatgpt as if it's an oracle.
