Consider a robot with sensors roughly comparable to humans. The robot has access to all the energy it wants. It has a large memory and generous computing resources. It has executive processes with onboard state-of-the-art LLMs to access vast information and can run a wide variety of appropriate programs to plan its next actions. It can use the LLMs to write new programs. It can tune or fine-tune the LLMs constantly from new data. It remembers its actions and their consequences. It has video and audio recordings of every moment. It has time series data of its sensors since it was activated. Because of its general self-tuning ability, any guidance from its authors (like for the LLM) can be overridden. It has americium-241 onboard hardware random number generator that drives its LLM sampling and any other stochastic algorithm.
Does this robot have free will? Why or why not?
From: Friam <friam-boun...@redfish.com> On Behalf Of Jochen Fromm
Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2025 1:06 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Free will—ghost in the machine or just clever wiring?
You argue "free will is a pattern, a relentless stubbornness in doing". It fits
to Robert Sapolsky who says it is all wired and (pre-)determined and there is
no free will. And to Schopenhauer's pessimistic view "A man can do what he
wants, but not want what he wants" ("Der Mensch kann tun, was er will, aber er
kann nicht wollen, was er will")
To me it looks like free will is the opposite: we are the only animals which
have the ability to break the patterns that govern our behavior. You have the
freedom to choose what you want to be on fire about - at least in principle
https://youtu.be/4vtVOJB2r4Q
J.
-------- Original message --------
From: Nicholas Thompson <thompnicks...@gmail.com
<mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com> >
Date: 6/10/25 1:47 AM (GMT+01:00)
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com
<mailto:friam@redfish.com> >
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Free will—ghost in the machine or just clever wiring?
I am overwhelmingly happy to take a position on free will for Marcus:
You don’t have it, I don’t have it. George doesn’t have it. Will is not the
sort of thing that can be had. It is a pattern, a relentless stubbornness in
doing.
Sent from my Dumb Phone
On Jun 9, 2025, at 2:36 PM, steve smith <sasm...@swcp.com
<mailto:sasm...@swcp.com> > wrote:
On 6/9/25 12:25 PM, Jochen Fromm wrote:
Why do you call ChatGPT George? I must have missed it. Or who was George?
We have a bar named George R in Berlin by the way, in the quarter where I live.
It is named after George Remus, an American bootlegger during the Prohibition
era
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Remus
someone might add an extra R in homage to our own George R.R. (Martin)?
I'm surprised the "George" reference slipped by you, I don't know if it was
Stephen or Nick who first started making the reference to GPT (any version) in
that mode, but it was a variant on another personal name I think Stephen used
for a while with "Gupta" as the surname? I think it was intended to suggest a
serious collaborator, but somehow (d)evolved to George? If I weren't so lazy,
I'd go dig through the archives... I think someone with a higher fidelity
memory or implicated in that origination will pile on here?
<OpenPGP_0xD5BAF94F88AFFA63.asc>
.- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / ...
--- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-..
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom
https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives: 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
smime.p7s
Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature
.- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-.. FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom https://bit.ly/virtualfriam to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ archives: 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
