[throwaway1851]

I agree. I also think that if you just take a step back and consider that ChatGPT is just a math function like y=7x-9 (but much longer), it becomes kind of absurd to ask questions about whether it is intelligent or it is on the path to consciousness or whatever. It’s a completely static thing: information flows through it in one direction and its internal configuration does not change as a result of receiving input. So unless we are going down a rabbit hole of considering if ordinary math functions are also intelligent, it would seem that ChatGPT is ineligible to begin with.

[jameshart]

Chatgpt as a simple function certainly lacks ‘strange-loopness’ - it does not change its results based on experience. True.

But consider how it is employed in a conversation:

Its output is combined with new input and fed back in as the next set of input data. So the result of the function is ‘modified’ by previous experience.

There’s the beginning of the flicker of a strange loop there.

And that might be all it takes…