I never said discussing LLMs was itself philosophical. I said that as soon as you ask the question “but does it really know?” then you are immediately entering the territory of the theory of knowledge, whether you’re talking about humans, about dogs, about bees, or, yes, about AI.

I’ll preface by saying I agree that AI doesn’t really “know” anything and is just a randomised Chinese Room. However…

Acting like the entire history of the philosophy of knowledge is just some attempt make “knowing” seem more nuanced is extremely arrogant. The question of what knowledge is is not just relevant to the discussion of AI, but is fundamental in understanding how our own minds work. When you form arguments about how AI doesn’t know things, you’re basing it purely on the human experience of knowing things. But that calls into question how you can be sure you even know anything at all. We can’t just take it for granted that our perceptions are a perfect example of knowledge, we have to interrogate that and see what it is that we can do that AIs can’t- or worse, discover that our assumptions about knowledge, and perhaps even of our own abilities, are flawed.

When you debate whether a being truly knows something or not, you are, in fact, engaging in the philosophy of epistemology. You can no more avoid epistemology when discussing knowledge than you can avoid discussing physics when describing the flight of a baseball.

The theory of knowledge (epistemology) is a distinct and storied area of philosophy, not a debate about semantics.

There remains to this day strong philosophical debate on how we can be sure we really “know” anything at all, and thought experiments such as the Chinese Room illustrate that “knowing” is far, far more complex than we might believe.

For instance, is it simply following a set path like a river in a gorge? Is it ever actually “considering” anything, or just doing what it’s told?

Not even remotely.

I’m not American, nor was that my logic. Please don’t resort to strawmen as dumb as “different form of democracy = dictatorship”.

You’ve given me a hell of a lot to think about, dude. I heard someone say recently, “why would the same media that lies about Gaza tell the truth about Ukraine?” And the seed had been planted. But, like I said earlier, I hadn’t seen any contrary opinions other than obvious bloodthirsty fascists who just have no sympathy for Ukraine’s citizens and like the idea of massive conflict.

If the picture you paint is true - that the West had essentially been building a military presence in Eastern Europe to deliberately threaten Russia, and that Eastern Ukraine genuinely considered themselves part of Russia - then I find it had to argue with what happened.

But, i have to admit, something is making it hard for me to truly accept. Somehow it’s harder to accept than accepting the truth that Israel is genociding Palestinians.

I’ll have to do some thinking and research. Thanks for putting up with me.

Yeah, you’re a bit late to the party of telling me that it’s all about defending the country. “Young and inexperienced in geopolitics” is also a bit of an assumption and just a character assessment rather than a response to my point. It’s a bit hard to look past what is essentially an insult and a dismissal.

Also, you spend a lot of time explaining that the USSR was just like everyone else in their lack of LGBT acceptance. Yes, I know. Conservative. Like I said. And obviously they were ahead in terms of worker’s rights. Socialism, yknow? I never stated that the USSR was entirely conservative, just that they had some conservative elements, and used LGBT non-acceptance as an example of that conservatism.

This is starting to devolve into nothing more than a fight, and it’s stressing me out, so I’d rather not continue and just accept that you were right about their acceptance of Putin.

When you put it like that, it makes a lot of sense. Thanks for having the patience to put up with my ignorance.

It just seems absurd to me that so many people in such a populous country are so uniformly super-conservative. The equivalent in the US, Trump, doesn’t even have such a super majority despite amazingly effective propaganda.

Sure, maybe Russian culture is just super conservative to begin with, but that seems odd considering how the USSR was able to even form and still enjoy fond memories among those who lived through it. Though, to be fair, the USSR was far from the most progressive state, and had its own conservative flavour, most notably an intolerance for homosexuality.

I’m willing to admit that much or even all I’ve heard about Russia is purely propaganda - but the alternative seems to be taking Russia at its word, and that would mean swallowing their own propaganda. The truth must lie somewhere in the middle, but where that is is hard to say.

To be clear, I don’t think the “Russia invaded poor peaceful Ukraine for fun” narrative is accurate. However, I don’t see any convincing alternatives to that. The “denazification” idea coming from Russia seems flimsy at best. There does certainly seem to be a large Nazi presence in Ukraine. But, unless they seem to be ramping up towards a pseudo fourth reich, that doesn’t seem to me to be a justification for a full-on invasion. Sanctions? Blockading? Defensive alliances with the rest of Europe? Those would seem reasonable.

But, yeah, there’s obviously a gap in my knowledge regarding this. I’m just not convinced yet that the gap contains justified excuses for Russia’s actions.

Things would have gone much more smoothly if you’d just posted this:

https://www.levada.ru/en/ratings/

I looked it up myself, and bizarrely, they do seem to like him according to the polls.

I think you fail to notice that i also consider the vast majority of “liberal democracies” to be decaying into fascism already. Your insinuations of my intentions are frivolous.

Just to make sure: you do realise that criticism of Russia does not equate to praise for Western democracies?

They are worth caring about. Just because they voted for leopards to eat their face doesn’t mean we revoke empathy for their facelessness.

Just saying - if the elections are rigged, polls can also be rigged. And again, just because others are bad doesn’t make Russia good. That’s basic whataboutism.

“What about Ukraine”?

They also suck. Moving on.

What you say is interesting, and thought provoking, but there’s not much substance beyond your claims. The only thing you actually corrected me on is when Putin became president. And idk man, but 20 years as president isnt much less dictator-y than 30 years as president.

And if Russia was leeched by US oligarchs - which obviously it was - what makes you think that didn’t have an effect on Russian politics?

Also, which facts did I “conveniently ignore”? I directly addressed the fact that far right politics are endemic in Europe. It just doesn’t stop Russia from also being far right.

Also, I’d like you to expand on the “cherry picking LGBT which is a fail”. Are you saying this isn’t a big deal or something?

Sure, the citizens of Russia just love Putin so much they voted for him consistently since the 90s. Takes a special kind of gullible to believe that.

https://www.politico.eu/article/putin-wins-rigged-russian-election-with-88-of-the-vote-exit-poll/

And i guess the people convicted for being associated with the LGBT are just paid actors.

https://www.globalequality.org/component/content/article/1-in-the-news/186-the-facts-on-lgbt-rights-in-russia

As for other Eastern European countries also being far right - that doesn’t make Russia any more left, does it? “They’re not the only far right country” is such bizarre rhetoric. I guess if everyone else is doing it, eh?

I’m aware that the links aren’t exactly leftist, but i can digging further on my phone. Literally all the sources I found agree.

EDIT: If you have sources that reliably contradict this, I’ll happily accept being wrong. There’s certainly room to question what is said about Russia.

Bro, Russia is ruled by a dictator-for-life, has some of the most conservative social norms and laws, including institutionalised homophobia and suppression of the press, and is currently engaged in an expansionist war.

The US turning Russia fascist doesn’t make Russia any less fascist, and doesn’t negate the fact that Russia is demonstrably flooding the web with propaganda and attempting (and largely succeeding) to influence Western politics

You’re spouting leftist rhetoric as if you’re actually on the side of the working class, yet have no problem snubbing the actual work and resorting to billionaires’ pet AIs. Be consistent, you poseur. If you actually cared about the working class you wouldn’t be rubbing artists out of the picture by using genAI, and you’d certainly be against the potential for AI to erase millions of jobs and devastate the environment with energy demands.

Because you’re a human being