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by embedding-shape 233 days ago
> Let me just ask you point blank: do you think LLM’s are sentient/akin to people?

I think you have to ask those questions to someone else/somewhere else, I'm not saying I'm in love with an LLM or even that I understand how the people who say there are, you're gonna have to ask them those questions. I was merely describing thoughts and writings of others, and my perspective of what I've read, I don't have personal experience about those feelings.

And seemingly I think it's the same for you, and neither of us can tell another human "You cannot be in love with it", that's just not how feelings work. You can say you don't understand it, ask them questions about it or whatever, but you cannot prescribe what feelings they should or shouldn't have.

I think I have a moderate understanding of how LLMs work, I'm currently sitting and building my own GPT-OSS implementation in Rust and Cuda, so I like to think I know bits and bobs about it. But even so, I'm not going around telling people what is or isn't true in regards to their feelings, especially not when I have 0 experience of what they're going through. You might want to take a step back and maybe ponder if it would be wise for you to do the same.

> But ultimately my point is it can’t be a real, consensual, reciprocated relationship.

I do agree with that, but that doesn't mean that someone could still feel like they're in love with something, even though they know it cannot be reciprocated. If they're feeling that they're in love with something, then that's what they're feeling.

1 comments

At the risk of being blunt, I think a lot of that comes across as hand wavy and dismissive. These read gimme like vaguely emotional appeals designed to say I lack empathy. I don’t feel like you’re engaging with most of the questions I asked at all.
No, it's true, I didn't, because the questions seemed to be aimed at people who currently think LLMs are sentient, or they currently feel like they're in love with LLMs, which I don't and I'm not, so I skipped the questions.

Lets try again, if you want. What specific questions you want me to answer?

I asked the relevant questions I had. You can have an opinion on something you don’t actively participate in man - you’ve been expressing one up until this point after all.

If you don’t want to answer so be it but we’re now entering “bad faith” territory so I’m not interested in participating further. Have a good one.