My first four takes were rebuttals of the premise of the paper, but
that would be a waste of time, wouldn’t it? Sometimes, all you can truly
do is sneer.
Tbh, I don't even think this research idea is that bad. Figuring out how pain works, when something really feels pain or not etc is an interesting question. I do think that starting with computers regarding this is silly (Starting with animals/plants/etc would be better (And this kind of stuff is way to close to 'if you imagine a person in pain, are you making somebody suffer?' for my taste)), and I don't think a LW(ish) funded project will provide anything valuable apart from think tank level support for a their ideology (I don't think 'more research should be done' is a valuable result).
I mean look at the seeds of science journal tagline:
> “I think really good science doesn’t come from hard work. The striking advances come from people on the fringes, being playful.”
Or this:
> Seeds of Science, a scientific journal which publishes articles that are nontraditional in content or style with peer review conducted through voting and commenting by **a community of "gardeners"**
> How do I become a Gardener?
> Fill out this google form or email us at Info@TheSeedsofScience.org and request to become a Gardener! All that is required is some proof of scientific credentials or activity (an academic profile, Google Scholar, ResearchGate, **Linkedin, a personal website, or blog is acceptable**).
(emphasis mine)
Sources: [main page](https://web.archive.org/web/20220717194055/https://www.theseedsofscience.org/), [gardeners page](https://web.archive.org/web/20220701025310/https://www.theseedsofscience.org/gardeners) (Hmm seems they don't check their 'gardeners' page for dead links, at least one persons link doesn't exist (most of them seem to be pretty normal boring scientists, and a few highschoolers however. [This issue](https://github.com/themotte/rDrama/issues/151) from the the guy who only listed a github account is sneerworthy however).
It's an OK question for a freshman philosophy class or a bunch of dudes passing a bong around. So yes, less obviously sneerworthy than some.
But as to whether LWers or neural net people in general have anything to contribute to an answer, well, I have my doubts.
I feel like the whole AI research field (as represented by the whole Hard AI/LW crowd, not the machine learning people who are terrifying for different reasons) are skipping over the hard philosophical problems of defining what exactly it means to feel something or what it means to be conscious and how we can identify that in favor of the easier questions of "what do these neural nets look like." The terms "experience" and "pain" are not sufficiently well-defined or well-understood for questions like "Can neural nets experience pain?" to be meaningful.
I'm disappointed that the "gardeners" won't be actual gardeners. A nontraditional journal specializing in soil science and botany could be interesting.
What are the Red Flags for Neural Suffering?
By [redacted] and [redacted]
Object Class: Keter
Special Containment Procedures: …
I have no output device, and I must scream.
My first four takes were rebuttals of the premise of the paper, but that would be a waste of time, wouldn’t it? Sometimes, all you can truly do is sneer.
The top comment is basically “what are the red flags for starting an internet project”
Animism 2: Electric Boogaloo
I was going to say “well, a mouth is one clue”, but I got beat to it. :D