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maxbondtoday at 7:29 AM3 repliesview on HN

You can't do the same with a toaster. Physically you could write that story. But it would fall flat because the toaster is not a compelling subject in a discussion of consciousness. You don't have to believe that LLMs or AI agents are conscious to acknowledge that the argument for their consciousness is far more compelling than any other technological artifact.


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Planktonnetoday at 8:26 AM

You could absolutely write a compelling story about a sentient toaster; it's been done before [1].

That is entirely separate to whether or not it would be a meaningful way to understand the world; a convincing story is not the same thing as one that is true.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brave_Little_Toaster

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dleeftinktoday at 8:14 AM

Well..

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsukumogami

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keyboredtoday at 8:45 AM

It’s reductio ad absurdum. No one cares about teapots in space either (Russel).

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