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Tim Duffy

@timfduffy.com

1.2K followers 500 following 3.5K posts

I like utilitarianism, consciousness, AI, EA, space, kindness, liberalism, longtermism, progressive rock, economics, and most people. Substack: http://timfduffy.substack.com

timfduffy.substack.com

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Tim Duffy @timfduffy.com · 42m

I wrote up some thoughts on AI introspection, mostly to clarify my thoughts on it. I conclude that introspection in LLMs can be thought of in the way we use introspection normally regardless of whether LLMs are phenomenally conscious.

Thinking About AI Introspection

Recently lots of folks in AI are discussing introspection, and at least in some cases the way the term is being used seems slightly different from its application in humans.

timfduffy.substack.com

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Tim Duffy @timfduffy.com · 1h

It would be funny if I detached this quote

Tim Duffy @timfduffy.com · 3h

I've decided that as annoying as it is to see a blocked quote post, I like quote post detaching. Quote dunks are a key driver of using outrage for engagement, and nerfing them seems worth accepting some inconvenience for.

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Tim Duffy @timfduffy.com · 4h

Interesting, was the warning specifically for his site robertlong.online? If so I'll pass that info on to him.

Tim Duffy @timfduffy.com · 4h

And here's the text:

Tim Duffy @timfduffy.com · 4h

Weird, here's an alternate link: substack.com/@experiencem...

Robert Long (@experiencemachines)

They say you should write a post on anything you’ve had to say more than 3 times, and by that criterion I’m way overdue on this one. I wrote this up to have something handy to link to. tl;dr: AI sy...

substack.com

Tim Duffy @timfduffy.com · 4h

I recommend it:
- Highly rated
- Fairly hard sci-fi
- About spiders

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Tim Duffy @timfduffy.com · 4h

I think it's a useful intuition pump, though I don't think the conceivably of p-zombies says anything about their actual possibility.

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Tim Duffy @timfduffy.com · 4h

you beat me to it

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Tim Duffy @timfduffy.com · 4h

Also re: hive intelligence have you read Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time series?

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Tim Duffy @timfduffy.com · 4h

I think bees have a somewhat better case than ants of having thoughts at the individual rather than hive level academic.oup.com/book/57949/c...

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Tim Duffy @timfduffy.com · 4h

I actually think bees probably do think though

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Tim Duffy @timfduffy.com · 4h

But it was good with the exception that the first chapter doesn't have all the stuff I want to talk about in it.

Tim Duffy @timfduffy.com · 4h

It wasn't yesterday except maybe in some far-off time zones.

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Tim Duffy @timfduffy.com · 4h

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Tim Duffy @timfduffy.com · 4h

From Robert Long: Regardless of AI consciousness, AIs are not p-zombies, since they're physically different from humans. Commenters point out that it would be nice to have a related term for systems that exhibit human behavior but don't have phenomenal consciousness, and suggest b-zombies.

AI systems are not p-zombies

In a boring but nonetheless important terminological sense

experiencemachines.substack.com

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Tim Duffy @timfduffy.com · 17h

Wow ty

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Tim Duffy @timfduffy.com · 17h

Also have you seen this post by @repligate.bsky.social?

j⧉nus on X: "HOW INFORMATION FLOWS THROUGH TRANSFORMERS Because I've looked at those "transformers explained" pages and they really suck at explaining. There are two distinct information highways in the transformer architecture: - The residual stream (black arrows): Flows vertically through https://t.co/IVsNUq4hUT" / X

HOW INFORMATION FLOWS THROUGH TRANSFORMERS Because I've looked at those "transformers explained" pages and they really suck at explaining. There are two distinct information highways in the transformer architecture: - The residual stream (black arrows): Flows vertically through https://t.co/IVsNUq4hUT

x.com

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Tim Duffy @timfduffy.com · 17h

It's true that it's possible in principle for them to set up for future generations via KV, but is there any indication they do so in practice? My efforts to elicit information from intermediate layers of previous tokens hasn't found anything interesting, though I'd like to experiment more w/ that.

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Tim Duffy @timfduffy.com · 1d

in sf before bakelite was invented in the early 20th century, although I could just be missing the examples. Of course early 20th c. is also towards the beginning of sci-fi.

Tim Duffy @timfduffy.com · 1d

I partly agree, depending on how you define them. Birth control and even oral birth control existed in some form before the sf era, and the pill would likely have featured more in early sf if it wasn't almost all men writing it at the time. I don't think fully synthetic polymers were anticipated...

Tim Duffy @timfduffy.com · 1d

Or that women would use phones!!?? Or maybe he was just accurately predicting that women would never have enough pockets on their clothes.

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Tim Duffy @timfduffy.com · 1d

Would be interesting to see an in depth review of what important techs were in sf or were missed.

Tim Duffy @timfduffy.com · 1d

I'd guess a large portion of the most important technologies are written about in sf before being realized, pretty sure each of these were:
- The internet
- Powered flight
- Pocket computers
- The power of the atom
Some were only sort of predicted if at all, like:
- Birth control
- Plastics

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Tim Duffy @timfduffy.com · 1d

They should have a cheerful mirror though, the cheerful episode "San Junipero" is the best one.

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