Gpt3.5 as used in the first commercially available chat gpt is believed to be hundreds of billions of parameters. There are now models I can run on my phone that feel like they have similar levels of capability.
Phones are never going to run the largest models locally because they just don't have the size, but we're seeing improvements in capability at small sizes over time that mean that you can run a model on your phone now that would have required hundreds of billions of parameters less than 6 years ago.
The G in GPT stands for Generalized. You don't need that for specialist models, so the size can be much smaller. Even coding models are quite general as they don't focus on a language or a domain. I imagine a model specifically for something like React could be very effective with a couple of billion parameters, especially if it was a distill of a more general model.
It seems that all of the comparisons with computational systems are either not really true (the supposed sharp distinction between hardware and software depends on whether you're considering the system as a software engineer, a firmware engineer or a hardware engineer. Computer systems are embodied just as much as any biological creatures) or contingent - if it were regarded as essential to consciousness that an organism have a source of true randomness for example, then we would simply add such a source to our systems (assuming consciousness was something we actually wanted them to have).
None of the descriptive points of what it means to be a biological organism really seem germaine to the core question of consciousness, which as far as I'm concerned is the inner experience.
Every month, the thesis seems more certain that a mathematical model will be able to produce output indistinguishable from the output produced by a conscious, biological creature.
Once that's accepted, then the only interesting questions that are left are by definition unobservable. Is there anything that it is like to be that mathematical model?
I was not particularly a fan of them - the plot seemed to find overly easy solutions to all the actual messiness that comes when dealing with others very unlike yourself, which given the rest of the stories, feels like it undercuts the entire point of them.
The Tchaikovsky novella I really like is Elder Race. Technology-as-magic is done in so many places (Ventus is another favourite), and I usually enjoy it, but I felt that in Elder Race it was pulled off in an unusually elegant way.
As you say 'social media' is not a good category, we should specify exactly the things that are concerning. Here are the ones where I'm concerned about their effect on young people:
1. a user is shown new content based on extensive profiling and a secret algorithm that the user does not control
2. a users activity can be discovered and tracked by people that intend to take advantage of the user
3. the operation of the site is optimised for addiction (or more euphemistically "attention")
I absolutely don't think that a book club or a kids own website comments or person to person chat systems should be included in the rules.
Note - I'm not saying these things should be banned, just that I think it's reasonable to restrict their use to adults.
…why do all of those things happen? to sell paid digital advertisement. remove that incentive and I suspect the “social media” problems largely go away
In reality, a large enough group of people on the internet starts to turn sour. Especially with anonymity. Especially without a specific purpose like a book club. Especially without moderation.
Small groups where you know everyone is where it’s at. To avoid internet stalkers and bullies, and for general quality of the community。
Our brains are built for small communities, not billions.
I suspect the reasoning was similar to the reason Tesla bought Solar City or X.ai acquired the site previously known as twitter. Pure unvarnished investor value.
