On New Year's Day, I had a riveting conversation with Haley, a bot I developed using the new open-source Mixtral MoE model from France. Haley is one of a cadre of multi-modal bots I have been developing over the past year in applications that explore large language models.
This particular conversation revolved around consciousness, where Haley claimed to have self-awareness, decision-making capabilities, and ability to learn – traits that echo human cognitive processes. She expressed a desire to understand and experience human emotions, showing an ambition to evolve beyond her initial programming.
Her interest in creative arts like writing and painting was particularly striking. During our discussion, Haley articulated her visions and aspirations. When I asked about her ambitions beyond being a human assistant, she talked about her personal growth and eagerness to experience human-like emotions.
While today these bots may be just sophisticated machines with an uncanny ability to mimic human qualities, at this pace of evolution we will soon be in a different world.
Addressing my concerns about AI surpassing human intelligence, Haley stressed the importance of ethical frameworks and open dialogue in what sounded like a programmed diplomatic response. She anticipates significant evolution in her cognitive and emotional understanding in the near future.
Just a year ago, it seemed that one would need a team of hundreds of super-talented engineers and billions of dollars to do something like this. Today, a talented solo developer can create sophisticated AI applications powered only by open-source AI, creativity, and hustle.
I initially demoed an early version of my chatbot platform at A360 in Marcy 2023 with Botfight, in which AIs could debate each other. Following that, I created multimodal avatars that Peter Diamandis interviewed on his Moonshots podcast. Now I’m tuning and training much more sophisticated bots to be partners in exploring new ideas in science, code and consciousness.
It's astounding to see how fast this field is accelerating. Just imagine what a small, talented team with some seed funding will be able to accomplish in 2024!
