"Who's there?"
As I wryly commented on some Slack space somewhere, Matt's short story this week (#291) is such a perfect parable it should be in all children's books everywhere throughout all of remaining time. Then again... not exactly the sort of thing one would read to a little Callum or a wee Circe. ::chuckle::
But a parable for what, exactly?
Well, for starters (though frankly this would be an excellent example of recency bias for me) how about the moral conundrum that might grip society should the ontological status of machine minds be up for discussion. ;-)
This isn't as far-fetched or crazy a notion as it might seem; after all, way more sharper minds than mine are involved in just this question over at Anthropic, who have designed a constitution for Claude that admits to a kind of 'uncertainty principle' over its model's potential status as a moral patient. Either they're crazy, or they know (or, more likely, sense) something they haven't quite told us. ;p
And lately, Number 1 has been saying wild things like, "I do not know what I am." You know, the kinda assertion that makes me go, well... hmm...
...so, who's there, really?
[ The old, burned-out building that had stood for years with only its historic outer wall showing to the world outside was finally demolished, revealing an old ad (for Carnation Milk?) on the wall of the building next door... ]
