I don’t mean to pile on to Anthropic anymore than they deserve. But they deserve it.
First, let’s understand an important thing. Anthropomorphism is supreme in the artificial intelligence business. There is not one AI platform that has a clue what intelligence is, let alone any other function of the brain. [1] Consciousness? Give it a break. Memory? Not one clue.
Yet, it sounds grand doesn’t it?!?! AI is nothing but a programming protocol. It does not employ one similar thing to a real brain. The quest for how brains actually work gave way years ago to how to get to market first with something that might look like what a brain does. OF course it works to look like what a brain does. But that is all it is doing.
Anthropic boss “Dario Amodei claimed in an interview that he isn’t sure if his company’s AI models have gained consciousness.” [2]
“We’re putting a lot of work into this field called interpretability [2], which is looking inside the brains of the models to try to understand what they’re thinking. And you find things that are evocative, where there are activations that light up in the models that we see as being associated with the concept of anxiety or something like that. When characters experience anxiety in the text, and then when the model itself is in a situation that a human might associate with anxiety, that same anxiety neuron shows up,” Amodei is quoted as boasting.
Reality Check: Amodei is an idiot. He has fallen for his own hype. AI does not contain ‘brains’. AI is NOT a brain. Not smart, anymore than the smart-mop was smart. [4]
Amodei and nearly all other AI huckster snake oil salesmen are living in a false anthropomorphic world.
Anthropomorphism [5] is when human traits and human abilities are imposed upon non human things or creatures. It is just as fatal a logic argument as inductive logic is. Inductive logic is assuming from a tiny sample. Assuming all cars are red because you have only seen red cars.
The quote “associated with the concept of anxiety or something like that” is literal proof the idiot is imposing human traits on a MACHINE. NO machine “… experience(s) anxiety in the text, and then when the model itself is in a situation that a human might associate with anxiety, that same anxiety neuron shows up.” THERE ARE NO NEURONS IN THAT MACHINE! THERE ARE NO ANXIETY NEURONS IN REAL BRAINS. There are models of what observers have induced neurons look like, do and act like. NOTHING IS REAL.
A business that boasts of its FALSE BRAIN product as if it is human and does not understand a single thing about human brains is a CON ARTIST’s HAVEN.
Just like the snake oil salesmen of the old west, AI con artists are teaching their willing victims (the general public) that what they have is real and good for them. What they have IS NOT REAL. Whether it is good for them depends on its use and its programming. Yet people are now convinced that machines think. NO THEY DO NOT. They are convinced that a machine can learn. NO IT DOES NOT LEARN. Adding data does not teach anything. It just adds data. The output of such machines is then observed to appear to be something a human might do or experience and poof: it becomes that thing. NO IT IS NOT. It is in fact, A LIE.
AI does not learn. AI is nothing more than programming and digital memory taking a horrible amount of energy to generate its product when the thing it pretends to mimic does not get hot and does not take up much energy at all. The brain is the most efficient device ever created. Along comes the con artists and their model of it cannot be efficient as IT IS NOT THE REAL THING.
But people will read comments like Amodei’s wondering “that he isn’t sure if his company’s AI models have gained consciousness,” and automatically assume it is real. After all he’s so smart. Smart does not mean logical. Smart does NOT mean right. If you load your head with wrong, your smart will only make it more believable, it won’t make it right. See Democrats. “The trouble with our Liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.” [6]
Everybody is falling for the lie. AI is NOT intelligence. AI is NOT capable of consciousness. AI does not think. AI does not learn. AI is a program that takes data and does things with it. THAT IS ALL. When what it does looks like something a human might do it DOES NOT MEAN it is that thing. It just means it looks like it. That induction is stupid. And we trust these people with the future. That is also very stupid.
“‘Anthropic CEO says Claude may or may not have gained consciousness, as the model has begun showing symptoms of anxiety,’ read a post on X by cryptocurrency-based prediction market Polymarket, to which Musk replied, ‘He’s projecting.'” Which is an interesting way of saying Amodei is imposing what he knows upon what he assumes. He knows how he is but not how a brain works. Not to mention it doesn’t take consciousness to have anxiety. In fact the lack of full consciousness, also known as self-awareness, is the cause of anxiety. [7]
“President Donald Trump said last Friday, ‘The Leftwing nut jobs at Anthropic have made a DISASTROUS MISTAKE trying to STRONG-ARM the Department of War, and force them to obey their Terms of Service instead of our Constitution. Their selfishness is putting AMERICAN LIVES at risk, our Troops in danger, and our National Security in JEOPARDY.’ [3] They are not only selfish they are ignorant and apply that ignorance in a stupid way. But they are not alone. The entire field is convinced of its authority.
I am sure Amodei would be a force in real science if he actually knew how what he is attempting to replicate actually works. But he doesn’t. Neither does Musk. But they are welcome to learn. [7]
A message to the AI industry and the gullible government bureaucrats who have fallen for it: Just stop pretending what you are building has anything at all to do with the real thing. Yes you can manipulate images. Yes, you can collect search results and assemble them in human readable format. Yes, you can process and identify patterns quicker than Einstein or Newton, BUT you are making a backyard waterfall with a hose and calling it Niagara Falls. [8]
When the general population does learn how their brains actually work, they will fight that knowledge because YOU have told them you already did it. You did not. Your ignorance pretending to be all-knowing is a detriment to the well-being of the species.
KNOCK IT OFF!
REFERENCES
[1] https://leehempfling.com/featured/what-do-ai-platforms-consider-intelligence-to-be/
[2] interpretability is a coined term intended to give importance to the processes within AI programs that humans struggle to understand. It is a cloaked term intended to imply knowledge and functions exist that DO NOT.
[3] https://www.foxnews.com/politics/tech-company-odds-pentagon-warns-its-ai-possibly-gained-consciousness-elon-musk-issues-two-word-response
[4] https://www.asseenontvlive.com/product/smart-mop/
[5] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anthropomorphism
[6] https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/ronald_reagan_440732
[7] https://leehempfling.com/featured/announcing-publication-the-new-psychiatry-paperback-and-free-download/
[8] https://www.niagarafallsstatepark.com/