Could the creation of artificial sentience lead to a moral catastrophe on the scale of factory farming — or perhaps far worse?

We think it’s a serious concern, even if it seems far-fetched.

Here’s why. 1/9

What do you see as the main achievements of the 'Foundations of Animal Sentience' project, and how could you build on them? If you can answer that Q I want to hear from you. I'm looking to recruit a 2yr postdoc to join my team. Details here: jobs.lse.ac.uk/Vacancies/W/40…

'Are Large Language Models Sentient?'

Fascinating talk by philosopher David Chalmers, hosted by previous #Sentientism podcast guest Jeff Sebo!

Includes a 'citation' for us! 🙂💚

youtu.be/-BcuCmf00_Y

#ESG2022 | Join us virtually on
- #JustTransition in livestock sector
- Mainstreaming #AnimalWelfare in sustainable development
- Transboundary #ClimateRisk in 🇧🇷🇩🇪 coffee supply
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- SDGs from a climate lens

Sign up: sei.org/events/2022-to…

You might disagree with Animal Rebellion’s tactics, but the inconvenient truth is they’re right. The science is clear: we need to shift away from animal agriculture for planetary health.

It’s time to take the vegans seriously. My latest for The New Republic.
newrepublic.com/article/168211…

Check out the new home of all things philosophy of animal minds, plan to attend some events, and sign up to receive the newsletter!

🚨 NEW PUBLICATION 🚨
 
In Nature Food, my co-authors and I argue that the cellular meat industry needs to embrace a race-to-mission rather than race-to-market approach to the development of the technology.
 
🧵 1/19

I'm pleased to share this great collection of essays on #AI & sentience, published by Global AI Ethics Institute. My contribution is 'Everything You Know About the Lemoine/LaMDA Affair is Wrong.' Take a read and let me know your thoughts! globalethics.ai/http-globaleth… #aiethics Blake Lemoine

congratulations to Wayne Hsiung on this epic op-ed!

'Our rescue in March 2017 revealed the tension between slaughtering animals for food and having compassion for them. The jury made the right choice. Our society eventually will, too.'

nytimes.com/2022/10/18/opi…

The focus on quota setting has come at the cost of considering end use, delegitimizing destructive practices, restoring ecosystems, ending overcapacity, eliminating subsidies, and understanding the lives of these animals and our relationship to them. Time for a new conversation!

Last week, David Chalmers argued that large language models have a low but non-zero chance of being sentient at the launch of the NYU Mind, Ethics, and Policy Program.

A video of the talk is now publicly available. Please view and share if you like!

youtube.com/watch?v=-BcuCm…

In the metadiscussion on AI sentience the last few days, I've seen several different people questioning why philosophers who study such things have a job or who pays them. FYI, random code slingers at Google net more money than the highest-paid philosophy professors in the world.

Prof Jeff Sebo: Nonhuman animals are not regarded as members of the public & we're exploiting them by the trillion: factory farming, deforestation, wildlife trade. These systems are really bad for global health. Public health needs to include nonhuman animals. #AJPNatCon

A runaway trolley is racing down the track. If you do nothing, it will stay on its current path, destroying the planet. If you flip a switch, it will move to a new track, damaging a painting. In this paper, I will argue that

I really enjoyed the recent talk by David Chalmers introduced by Jeff Sebo at 🧠 NYU Consciousness 🧠. A bee is probably sentient with only one million neurons. Some AI models are soon going to have over 100 trillion parameters (trillion not billion or million!). 1/4

so, what's the best reason to think large language models are not sentient? more precisely: what's the best candidate for X such that LLMs clearly lack X and X is required for sentience?

The Center for Mind, Brain, and Consciousness co-sponsored the launch of Jeff Sebo's Mind, Ethics, and Policy program last night, a talk by David Chalmers on 'Are Large Language Models Sentient?'
(A recording of the talking is on its way; watch this space!)

Very happy to see all the discussion this talk has generated! A lot of people are skeptical of LLM sentience, including me. But the questions here are important and difficult, and it feels encouraging to see how many people are taking them seriously, skepticism notwithstanding.