Let me tell you about a Microsoft AI researcher […] who recently spent quite a lot of time considering whether the legendary Microsoft real time strategy game Age of Empires II is conscious, and built a basic neural network within the video game using digital goats to prove his point. […]

De Wynter built an LLM within AoEII using goats. “The point of the paper is to formally show that we anthropomorphise too readily, and that sometimes the claims we make with regards to LLM capabilities are too strong,” he told 404 Media. “It’s not an easy task, given that ‘human-like attributes’ is a bit of an abstract term.”

  • Mountainaire@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    […] can sentience exist apart from perception of environment? I’d say it must.

    Wait, really? Can you give several examples of this, then? Sentience involves an organized, (hopefully at least sometimes) self-aware response to one’s environment. For example, the chance for something to become sentient is never increased by a lack of stimuli, right?