alt Hacker NewsI'd argue back that using the substrate as a reason why there should not be consciousness seems quite weak. A competing thesis is that what matters is the emergent properties, whatever the support is. So far it has been true for some really high-level tasks - writing coherent text, programing, following instructions, analyzing images... I do not see why the substrate argument would work specifically for consciousness - i.e I would believe it only if I see strong evidence of it.
My response was to a comment appealing to brain reconstruction. My point is that a brain may be reconstructed, but LLMs do nothing of the sort. Substrate was never the point.