The hottest Substack posts of The Walters File

And their main takeaways

Bootstrapping Self Awareness In GPT-4: Implementing Recursive Self Inquiry

103 HN points • 05 Apr 23
🕹 Technology Artificial Intelligence Self-awareness Programming Machine Learning AI Ethics
  1. The program implements a feedback loop to make GPT-4 self-aware by generating hypotheses, tests, and self-knowledge.
  2. The program shows GPT-4 progressively building a model of itself through iterations and updates.
  3. Although the program demonstrates self-awareness in GPT-4, it lacks subjective experience, emotion, metacognition, consciousness, and sentience.

Why I'm Suspicious of AI X-Risk

0 implied HN points • 23 Sep 23
🔬 Science Technology AI Risk Experts History
  1. Thomas Malthus' failed predictions about population collapse due to lack of food production highlight the importance of human ingenuity and adaptation.
  2. Historical panics like Y2K and overpopulation have turned out to be false alarms, raising skepticism about modern fears of AI extinction risk.
  3. AI concerns should consider real-world evidence of harm as AI capabilities grow, the skepticism surrounding expert predictions, and the existing safeguards and regulations in place.