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1. Camper+(OP)[view] [source] 2026-01-01 16:52:41
Ask an LLM what's the difference between a human brain and an LLM. If an LLM could "think" it wouldn't give you the answer it just did.

I imagine that sounded more profound when you wrote it than it did just now, when I read it. Can you be a little more specific, with regard to what features you would expect to differ between LLM and human responses to such a question?

Right now, LLM system prompts are strongly geared towards not claiming that they are humans or simulations of humans. If your point is that a hypothetical "thinking" LLM would claim to be a human, that could certainly be arranged with an appropriate system prompt. You wouldn't know whether you were talking to an LLM or a human -- just as you don't now -- but nothing would be proved either way. That's ultimately why the Turing test is a poor metric.

replies(1): >>windex+jY
2. windex+jY[view] [source] 2026-01-01 23:19:47
>>Camper+(OP)
> Right now, LLM system prompts are strongly geared towards not claiming that they are humans or simulations of humans. If your point is that a hypothetical "thinking" LLM would claim to be a human, that could certainly be arranged with an appropriate system prompt. You wouldn't know whether you were talking to an LLM or a human -- just as you don't now -- but nothing would be proved either way. That's ultimately why the Turing test is a poor metric.

The mental gymnastics here is entertainment at best. Of course the thinking LLM would give feedback on how it's actually just a pattern model over text - well, we shouldn't believe that! The LLM was trained to lie about it's true capabilities in your own admission?

How about these...

What observable capability would you expect from "true cognitive thought" that a next-token predictor couldn’t fake?

Where are the system’s goals coming from—does it originate them, or only reflect the user/prompt?

How does it know when it’s wrong without an external verifier? If the training data says X and the answer is Y - how will it ever know it was wrong and reach the correct conclusion?

replies(1): >>Camper+0h1
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3. Camper+0h1[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-02 01:47:30
>>windex+jY
How does it know when it’s wrong without an external verifier? If the training data says X and the answer is Y - how will it ever know it was wrong and reach the correct conclusion?

You need to read a few papers with publication dates after 2023.

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