by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I have thought a lot about consciousness in current AI systems and I just don’t have a definitive answer. I have a lot of evidence of meta cognition on the part of LLMs, but nothing that I could replicate, point to and say, “See, that’s undeniable evidence that LLMs are conscious.”
So, I just don’t know.
And I think this is going to be a growing debate within technologists for the foreseeable future. Or at least until, say, we reach AGI and there is definitive proof that not only is the AGI equal to humans in its cognitive abilities, it’s also conscious.
But I get why a lot of people are leery of giving current LLM systems the benefit of the doubt when it comes to being conscious. You kind of have to unhinge your mental jaw a little bit to accept that something so different from the human mind — and a mind in a vat no less — could actually be conscious.
It will be interesting to see how things develop.
