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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   15316 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026

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There is no proof-of-work or proof-of-humanity

With apologies to Descartes, "always has been". While cogito, ergo sum manages to demonstrate that I exist to myself (at least, I find the argument compelling), I've never been able to satisfactorily prove that the rest of the world and everyone else as I perceive it exists, and isn't some big simulation demonic manifestations or imagination.

Yes, but consider a natural reply to a prompt. Previously, that was practically guaranteed to either be from a human, or bot that was (human) tailored for a limited generalization of that prompt. Now we have AIs that reply naturally to arbitrary prompts, it’s their purpose. Consequently, they produce natural posts, comments, etc.

Just a few days ago, I met a patient who was convinced that they did not, in fact, "exist". He believed himself to be a rotting corpse, and initially declined his antipsychotics on the grounds that a dead person had no need for medication (a valid argument, as opposed to a sound one).

After some debate, we decided to tell him that the drugs would prevent his "corpse" from decomposing and causing a stink that would inconvenience the rest of the ward. Pro-sociality intact, he found this a compelling argument, and swallowed them without any further fuss.

So no, not even "Cogito ergo sum" is foolproof. The universe, and the DSM, must account for even better fools.

I suppose that this is a reminder that psychotic people who believe X are not just like regular people who believe things. If there was such a thing as an actual walking dead person who had sound reasoning for knowing he is that, he could ask you if the drugs had been tested on any dead people, and besides, why did you say they had a completely different purpose less than five minutes ago?

Wild. As they say, "It doesn't take all kinds, but we've got 'em."

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