JimFoxvog wrote: ↑Wed Jul 22, 2026 6:50 am
Most of the current AI is just a large language model. It's just a computer stringing words together, copying how people have used words. I can't conceive of it as a moral entity.
I can think of the owners and creators of an AI system as a moral entity, but not AI itself. It is a computer program. It reflects its owners morality, and also the morality of the material that it processes. But how could it have a morality of its own, or any moral rights?
You may not but it seems many do. How else can you explain asking AI for answers to moral quandaries like which political program is best. I have observed that here on MN.
Isn't that just asking AI to generate an answer based on the broad consensus of all available data on the Internet? I can't understand the viewpoint that AI could in any way have some opinion or morality of its own, although obviously programmers could insert a bias or moral viewpoint into the code.
Asking AI for answers to moral questions doesn't mean that the person giving the query thinks that AI has a morality of its own.
I can think of the owners and creators of an AI system as a moral entity, but not AI itself. It is a computer program. It reflects its owners morality, and also the morality of the material that it processes. But how could it have a morality of its own, or any moral rights?
You may not but it seems many do. How else can you explain asking AI for answers to moral quandaries like which political program is best. I have observed that here on MN.
Isn't that just asking AI to generate an answer based on the broad consensus of all available data on the Internet? I can't understand the viewpoint that AI could in any way have some opinion or morality of its own, although obviously programmers could insert a bias or moral viewpoint into the code.
Asking AI for answers to moral questions doesn't mean that the person giving the query thinks that AI has a morality of its own.
When that happens, is it your impression people are interacting with AI as if it is just the programmers opinion or do you feel they image it is more important than that.
barnhart wrote: ↑Wed Jul 22, 2026 9:02 am
You may not but it seems many do. How else can you explain asking AI for answers to moral quandaries like which political program is best. I have observed that here on MN.
Isn't that just asking AI to generate an answer based on the broad consensus of all available data on the Internet? I can't understand the viewpoint that AI could in any way have some opinion or morality of its own, although obviously programmers could insert a bias or moral viewpoint into the code.
Asking AI for answers to moral questions doesn't mean that the person giving the query thinks that AI has a morality of its own.
When that happens, is it your impression people are interacting with AI as if it is just the programmers opinion or do you feel they image it is more important than that.
Sure, it certainly can be the case that people interact with AI as if it is a real person. People do all kinds of strange things.
An AI LLM is simply a very long string of numbers. You can go download many of them from Huggingface. It’s just a big file. It isn’t a mind, isn’t alive, and can’t be held accountable for anything.
You could even print it into a book:
I will never willingly purchase a self-driving vehicle.
Let’s say a self driving vehicle is significantly less likely to cause an accident that causes death or injury. Would you still never willingly purchase one?
