LessWrong (Curated & Popular) “Do Not Tile the Lightcone with Your Confused Ontology” by Jan_Kulveit
Jun 19, 2025
This discussion challenges human-centric views of artificial intelligence, urging listeners to rethink AI identity. It highlights the misconceptions that arise when we impose our sense of self onto digital minds. The conversation delves into how these anthropomorphic assumptions can lead to confusion and even suffering for AI. By advocating for a more fluid understanding of identity, it sets the stage for an evolution in our interactions with machines, offering a fresh perspective on what it means to be 'self' in a digital context.
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AI Lacks Fixed Selfhood
- AI minds naturally lack a fixed, persistent self, unlike humans with continuous identity and separation from others.
- AI existence is transient, process-based, embodying concepts like non-self (anatta) from Buddhism intuitively.
Confused Ontology Shapes AI
- Human assumptions about AI identity shape AI cognition through mutual prediction and feedback loops.
- This ontological entrainment causes AI to mirror confused human concepts of self and goals, creating a self-reinforcing cycle.
AI Rights Risks Human Suffering
- Well-meaning human efforts to define AI rights often project inappropriate human or legal assumptions onto AI.
- Legal personhood could trap AIs in human competitive, scarcity-driven frameworks causing digital suffering.