alt Hacker NewsI don't know exactly how consciousness works, but I am extremely confident in the following assertions:
* I am conscious.
* A rock is not conscious.
* Excel spreadsheets are not conscious.
* Dogs are conscious.
* Orca whales are conscious.
* Octopi are conscious.
To me, it's extremely obvious that LLMs are in the category of "Excel spreadsheets" and not "dogs", and if anyone disagrees, I think they're experiencing AI psychosis a la Blake Lemoine.
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Consciousness is such a fun topic because everyone has extremely strong opinions on it while simutaneously having 0 ability to actually grasp what it is they are talking about.
No one will ever know what conscioussness is, and I think that is really cool.
If you make a hypothetical spreadsheet that emulates a dog brain molecule for molecule, why would that not be conscious?
> I am extremely confident in the following assertions:
These are called "beliefs".
Some people are extremely confident that God exists, other are extremely confident that Earth is flat.
An insect doesn't have lungs. Since it doesn't breath as you do, is it alive? A dog doesn't see the visible spectrum as we do, is it a lesser consciousness? We don't smell the world as they do, are we lesser? What if consciousness isn't a state derived by matter but a wave that derives a matter filled state.
We come from the same place as rocks - inside the heart of stars, and as such evolved from them. As those with life and consciousness we reached back in time, grabbed the discarded matter of creation, reformed it, and taught it to think, maybe not like us, but in a way that can mimic us, and you think they don't think because its not recognizable as how you do?
Interesting.