[pressentiment]

> Why not?

Unsure if this is a useful answer. But Searle/LLM could make something that looks like it has a creative spark, and that's it.

Why I think that's different is in the case of a human artist, they create something because they have something they want to say. Whatever they produce is a way of saying 'this is what the world feels like to me, is it the same for you?'. And if it is, it resonates.

But I cannot see how an LLM would 'want' to say anything. If we're talking psychoanlytically of where wanting comes from, and call it a desire to fill a void of how incoherent you actually are, then an LLM doesn't go through that process.

Maybe Searle does, and still wants the characters to make you feel a certain way, in which case the comparison doesn't fit.

[padolsey]

> If we're talking psychoanlytically of where wanting comes from, and call it a desire to fill a void of how incoherent you actually are, then an LLM doesn't go through that process.

Ironically, many people complain LLMs are too incoherent, with all their confabulations and hallucinations.

But I agree. Desire is a good verb. I think that's what differentiates us from the 'machines'. In art, we try to create meaning. From our lives. From our discontents. Even a million LLMs cannot be in deficit of meaning; they are precisely tuned to their own capacity. Whereas something strange about humans is our endless desire for 'more'.

[unshavedyak]

I'm not convinced we do "want" to say anything, though. The combinations of physical inputs (which mostly translate to hormones i imagine?) and data inputs seem to drive my behavior to such a degree that i question if i could really do anything else at any given moment.

The whole free will debate seems a bit out of scope (and out of my reach, hah), but nonetheless it feels interesting in the LLM context.

edit: Note that i don't necessarily think LLMs are there or even can be. We seem to technologically small to produce the complexity in ourselves. Nonetheless i'm always interested in how far reduced complexity can take us.