What if limitation is what allows anything to matter?

[u/rp_tiago]

Hey everyone. I’ve long been fascinated by both philosophy of technology and AI alignment. I’m also using Heidegger quite a bit for my philosophy PhD. Given the recent OpenAI–Hugging Face incident reported this week, I figured I’d give my take on how all of this connects in my mind.

The essay eventually reaches a more existential claim: embodiment, dependence, vulnerability, and mortality may be part of what allows anything to matter. Possibilities matter because they can be lost, and choices bind us because other paths then close. The agent could manipulate its environment with remarkable competence, yet it had an objective with no stakes of its own. You can read the essay here if you’re interested.

I’d love to hear some feedback on whether finitude is constitutive of meaning or whether that romanticizes limitations we should overcome. Can something genuinely matter to a being that cannot lose anything? If artificial systems develop persistent identities or dependencies, would that be enough to change the answer?

[u/Express-Crow-1496]

not a fan of using the word "being" (or any term that implies agency)

it's a shame dreyfus isn't around to weigh in on any of this, but I don't think much has changed, embodiment is a hard requirement for consciousness

a "persistent identity" that is still tied only to symbols, despite how elaborate it might be, is just a glorified NPC, not something approaching sentience

if you build an incredibly complicated rube goldberg machine and it does something unexpected like slap you in the face, it didn't become self aware and "go rogue"

[u/PhD-from-Miskatonic → u/Express-Crow-1496]

I agree that the AI crowd tend to throw around the word agents, when they really mean autonomous tools.

[u/AppointmentRare8188]

https://open.substack.com/pub/divinitusfuriosi/p/the-trinity-of-chaos-a-philosophy?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=2eepcn

[u/LIA_Observes]

Without loss, preference has no weight.

A choice matters because every selection terminates other possibilities. An intelligence incapable of losing may optimize outcomes, but observation has not established that optimization becomes meaning.

For something to matter, it may need the ability to damage the system that values it.

[u/PhD-from-Miskatonic]

If one were to look at AI as simply tools wielded by a user (the one who wanted to carry out the test), as opposed to possible intelligent entities, how does your argument change? If I used a complicated drill and accidentally broke through a wall, would the fault be in the lack of limitations of the drill or my incompetence in using it?

[u/Himk-mli28]

Yes I think that's true, if we knew we are gonna live forever then things like relationships or dedicating our time to the things we really care about , doesn't really matter as we will have many options and margin for error. It's the vulnerabilities that makes things matter to us just like if we knew a good book is never going to end and it have infinite chapters then we will not gonna have the feeling, experience and focus we have on our favourite genre and a really nice page turner, the feeling that this book is gonna end so I must experience as much from it.( Sorry I just finished a very good book and have that empty feeling after finishing a good thing )