Yet another example of all philosophy reducing to linguistics. To the extent that “Torture” as a word is effectively expressing a moral judgement by its definition, then sure, waking up in the morning and thinking “I’m going to torture something” is alarming. A person expressing real sadism to an AI is still expressing real sadism.
You can’t really torture a machine though any more than you can murder one by deleting the weights. In this connotation, the terminology is more like gallows humor, I think. You are exploring how a model reacts to a specific stimulus, and using a linguistic analogy to summarize it. It’s a curiosity. Finding it interesting doesn’t make you a sadist by itself if you don’t also want to torture bunnies and shit.
Yea, I don’t think the action is hurting anyone, it’s the implication involved when someone finds entertainment in doing it.
I used to steal my sister’s Barbies as a kid and then hang them in a noose around the house. Even if you take how my sister felt out of the equation and just relegated it to the impact it had on the Barbies (which is none, they are objects), it’s still problematic behavior. I thankfully turned out alright.
Yet another example of all philosophy reducing to linguistics. To the extent that “Torture” as a word is effectively expressing a moral judgement by its definition, then sure, waking up in the morning and thinking “I’m going to torture something” is alarming. A person expressing real sadism to an AI is still expressing real sadism.
You can’t really torture a machine though any more than you can murder one by deleting the weights. In this connotation, the terminology is more like gallows humor, I think. You are exploring how a model reacts to a specific stimulus, and using a linguistic analogy to summarize it. It’s a curiosity. Finding it interesting doesn’t make you a sadist by itself if you don’t also want to torture bunnies and shit.
Yea, I don’t think the action is hurting anyone, it’s the implication involved when someone finds entertainment in doing it.
I used to steal my sister’s Barbies as a kid and then hang them in a noose around the house. Even if you take how my sister felt out of the equation and just relegated it to the impact it had on the Barbies (which is none, they are objects), it’s still problematic behavior. I thankfully turned out alright.