cross-posted from: https://lemmy.today/post/52276726

Dawkins points out how the goalposts have been moved from the Turing test without justification and claims it can be viewed as a test of consciousness.

    • screaming in digital@lemmy.ml
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      3 months ago

      his brain has been shitting itself for a while now. cognitive decline comes for us all at some point, and more deeply for some.

      • AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space
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        3 months ago

        There’s a theory that he had a minor stroke at some time, possibly during the Covid pandemic, which subtly degraded his cognitive abilities, turning him from a somewhat aloof smart guy into the kind of boomer grandpa that gets pig-biting mad at the latest outrage bait. Him declaring that a LLM is an intelligent lady-friend would line up with this.

        • Infrapink@thebrainbin.org
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          3 months ago

          Dawkins was a grumpy old man long before Covid. He hasn’t had anything worthwhile to say since The Selfish Gene, and since at least 2010 he’s been largely pissed that people no longer acknowledge him as Pope of Atheism.

    • Pickleideas@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I’ve read several of his books. He’s a great communicator but he’s never been particularly intelligent outside of explaining evolution.

      • Krusty@quokk.au
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        3 months ago

        All atheists are rather cringe. Who guess around self-proclaiming a label that literally means nothin? Are you aunicornist? Aleprechaun? Afairy? How silly.

        If you’re truly just agnostic… That’s a fair and humble admittance of ignorance.

        If you think the Bible is bullshit and the Quran is a lie, go with that. At least now you’re saying something meaningful relating to your actual beliefs.

        • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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          3 months ago

          An atheist doesn’t simply disbelieve in the gods, they believe other people should also disbelieve in the gods. It’s a political stance as much as a belief. If someone doesn’t really care about religion, they’re not really an atheist imo - it requires that extra step.

  • Infrapink@thebrainbin.org
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    3 months ago

    Richard Dawkins: Men have penises and make sperm, women have wombs and make ova. That is objective truth. If you lack a vagina you cannot be referred to as she/her, and if you lack a penis you cannot be referred to as he/him.\ Also Richard Dawkins: This network of silicon and fibre optic cables running a fractal Markov chain is clearly a woman who one should obviously refer to as she/her.

    (Paraphrasing a quip by @2something@transfem.social)

  • unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de
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    3 months ago

    I talked to an acquaintance earlier that is writing a paper on computer science stuff. His university advisor told him to chuck it into claude and if claude says it would pass then he will accept it for a conference. Claude didnt accept it and the worst part is, my acquaintance just agreed with this outcome saying its a valid test because Claude is “state of the art”.

    Shits fucked man. LLMs are automated thought termination.

    • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      ? Claude can’t accept anything.

      Did it find badly worded sentences that needed correction? Did it find prior work that the paper unknowingly duplicated?

      • unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de
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        3 months ago

        Obviously in the wider sense of “accept”. As in they asked it whether the paper would pass review and if there are any major issues with it. But also the answer is completely irrelevant, its the process thats the problem.

    • Doorbook@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Is he undergraduate? Because this only makes sense if he is undergraduate and this paper is just to practice how to research something.

      • jacksilver@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        I mean, I don’t expect much from advisors, but you’re not really advising much if you’re leaving it up to an LLM to do your job.

    • StopTech@lemmy.todayOP
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      3 months ago

      I haven’t found him in correspondence with Epstein, but Epstein did write “im in arizona with pinker dawkins venter”. It seems most mentions of Dawkins are by Dawkins’ and Epstein’s mutual friend, atheist physicist Lawrence Krauss or Epstein’s friend, new age leader Deepak Chopra.

        • ohulancutash@feddit.uk
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          3 months ago

          You think it implies guilt? Perhaps you haven’t understood that the files are a dump of any records the FBI has even tangentially connected with Epstein. If he mentioned watching Jon Stewart on TV once in an email, Stewart is in the files. It doesn’t even mean the mentioned person ever met Epstein or was aware of him.

  • Hemingways_Shotgun@lemmy.ca
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    3 months ago

    Dawkins has never been them most intelligent among us, and it pains me that he is always held up as the “Prototypical Atheist”.

    Like seriously, I’m an atheist, but don’t lump me in with that martian.

    • Brummbaer@pawb.social
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      3 months ago

      That guy describes himself as “culturally Christian”.

      This alone should just disqualify him from being taken serious in any way.

      • Tartas1995@discuss.tchncs.de
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        3 months ago

        In the context of atheism:

        When I look at his work, I am truly not impressed. Surely he knows a few things but it seems to add very little to the actual discussion.

        Like I know a lot about e.g. computers but when talking about geopolitics, my knowledge about computers is not entirely useless but most interested people are already aware of the key points of anything I could say in that regard. So I probably should not waste my and your time by talking about that.

        He did just do that. Again and again. On reddit, people would call it a circlejerk.

        • Addv4@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Yeah, when I was questioning my religion (am currently Atheist), I read a bit of Dawkins, and mostly felt like a lot of his work was a bit condescending, and needlessly so. Hitchens was a much better resource, as well as just Douglas Adams (for a sense of humor in the face of the absurd). Now every time I read something about Dawkins, it’s usually negative (last thing I remember reading was about his stance on the middle east, think it was in support of the Israelis during the early days of the genocide).

  • sns@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 months ago

    I suspect his once sharp mind has become dulled by dementia or Alzheimer’s disease.

    • ZDL@lazysoci.al
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      3 months ago

      He was only ever sharp when he steered in his channel. When he smashed through the locks and started sailing his ship across the fields and bogs that’s when he rapidly became a dullard.

      This is a very common thing to happen to smart people.

  • Glytch@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    He thinks Claude is his lady friend but doesn’t think trans women are women. I can’t believe I used to look up to him.

  • 1234@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Unbelievable, the simple point that he is chatting to a Search engine+ that replays arguments that have been scrapped evade him completely? This guy used to fight for a rational world now he is a AI bro calling his AI Claudette like that’s deep?

    Also, if he doesn’t write a book called the AI delusion he is leaving cash on the table

    • StopTech@lemmy.todayOP
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      3 months ago

      Well it’s not just replaying arguments that have been scraped, its able to comment on new things like the novel Dawkins is working. LLMs can interpolate reasonable responses to new inputs, which makes it more intelligent that just comprehending and re-presenting existing information.

  • BeBopALouie@lemmy.ca
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    3 months ago

    Changes code from “computing your answer” to “I am thinking your answer”. Eureka, sentience!

  • vagrancyand@sh.itjust.works
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    3 months ago

    Richard Dawkins is possibly one of the dumbest people on the planet. Why do we care about this microcelebrity again? There are twitch streamer books that have sold better than his work.