Theory of Mind - LLM vs Human

Reddit r/artificial News
theory-of-mind llm human-cognition consciousness affective-empathy cognitive-empathy subjective-experience

Summary

A reflection on the difference between LLM theory of mind and human theory of mind, arguing that LLMs lack affective empathy due to their reliance on objective data, while humans integrate subjective experiences.

I was just thinking about the difference between an LLMs capacity for theory of mind and a human's capacity for theory of mind, and I realize it gets at the heart of what differentiates an LLM from human, and that's the method of how we gather information. LLMs are based on objective data, e.g. text, numbers, pixels, etc. Whereas we as humans, use subjective information, e.g., feelings, sensations, experiences; as well as objective data. Within cognitive science, this would be described as affective empathy vs cognitive empathy. Or in other words, LLMs simply possess a cognitive theory of mind, whereas we have both a cognitive \*and\* affective theory of mind. The problem I have with figures like Hinton, who claim that AI is already conscious, is that his whole framework is based on the idea that consciousness (subjective experience) is just an artifact of computation (an illusion), and therefore there is no recognition of subjective measure - that reality is only defined by what we can measure objectively (with fixed metrics). I think what this fails to recognize is that in pursuit of reproducible results, which requires fixed metrics, we've thrown out a whole set of other measurements, which is subjective (variable).
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