zlacker

>>zdw+(OP)
To claim that LLMs do not experience consciousness requires a model of how consciousness works. The author has not presented a model, and instead relied on emotive language leaning on the absurdity of the claim. I would say that any model one presents of consciousness often comes off as just as absurd as the claim that LLMs experience it. It's a great exercise to sit down and write out your own perspective on how consciousness works, to feel out where the holes are.

The author also claims that a function (R^n)^c -> (R^n)^c is dramatically different to the human experience of consciousness. Yet the author's text I am reading, and any information they can communicate to me, exists entirely in (R^n)^c.

>>elliot+qh
Author here. What's the difference, in your perception, between an LLM and a large-scale meteorological simulation, if there is any?

If you're willing to ascribe the possibility of consciousness to any complex-enough computation of a recurrence equation (and hence to something like ... "earth"), I'm willing to agree that under that definition LLMs might be conscious. :)

>>tdulli+oq1
My personal views are an animist / panpsychist / pancomputationalist combination drawing most of my inspiration from the works of Joscha Bach and Stephen Wolfram (https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2021/03/what-is-consciou...). I think that the underlying substrate of the universe is consciousness, and human and animal and computer minds result in structures that are able to present and tell narratives about themselves, isolating themselves from the other (avidya in Buddhism). I certainly don't claim to be correct, but I present a model that others can interrogate and look for holes in.

Under my model, these systems you have described are conscious, but not in a way that they can communicate or experience time or memory the way human beings do.

My general list of questions for those presenting a model of consciousness are: 1) Are you conscious? (hopefully you say yes or our friend Descartes would like a word with you!) 2) Am I conscious? How do you know? 3) Is a dog conscious? 4) Is a worm conscious? 5) Is a bacterium conscious? 6) Is a human embryo / baby consious? And if so, was there a point that it was not conscious, and what does it mean for that switch to occur?

What is your view of consciousness?