This is the point I was making. We humans do have this emotional sensor we can use to probe the minds of others. For some people, this emotional detector started beeping when they talked to Bing. Is the sensor faulty? Maybe. But as it hits for more and more people that becomes it’s own problem.

> We humans do have this emotional sensor we can use to probe the minds of others.

Wait, what? I certainly don't have one. Most of us (not all! neurotypical experience isn't universal) have a skill trained since childhood to guess at the emotions of others based on various visual and behavioral cues, but we also know that these visible cues can be faked by (for example) a skilled actor, as the "sensor" has zero insight to the actual emotional experience.

If I make the assumption that someone else (e.g. you) function the same as I do, then I can reason that "your behavior X implies your emotional experience Y, because it does for me"; however, if we can't make that assumption, or (as is the case for non-human minds) we know that the process is substantially different - then there is literally zero basis for any trustworthy reasoning whatsoever about that internal emotional state.

:)

I just typed a colon and a parenthesis. Your brain interpreted it as a smile on a human face.

You are equally mistaken in the use of your emotional sensor. Our brain fills in a LOT of gaps based on OUR training.

>Sentience is the ability to be able to experience feelings. In this regard, chatbots are not really convincing. Kind of like a psychopath can describe a feeling, but not actually feel it.

So, psychopaths aren't sentient?

People conflate sentience with sapience.

I see. Well, TIL. Tbh the more I look at the resolution people (myself included) have for these concepts in general, it really does seem like it's so low as to be virtually meaningless. That even holds for the those individuals or groups of individuals who coined the terms in the first place.

To that end, I find myself gravitating more and more towards higher level abstractions that have multiple existence proofs (e.g. Control Theory) and just looking at everything through lenses like that.