[throwaway314155]

It’s obvious from the subtext and the point that the movie is trying to make. The metaphor is that sometimes you fall in love with someone who outgrows you. I believe they even originally had a more “robotic” voice actor but changed it to Scarlett in order to make it crystal clear that she is as sentient as, if not more so, than Theodore is.

[satvikpendem]

Sure, it's a movie so it's going to use human voice actors and have an actual story and point, but my point was more on the technological side, that the bots in the movie aren't much different than what we have today and we in fact cannot know if they're conscious or not, even if they seem to be.

[throwaway314155]

> we in fact cannot know if they're conscious or not, even if they seem to be

They (modern LLM's/agents) don't "seem to be" from my point of view. I respectfully disagree I suppose.

edit: One data point - https://www.twitch.tv/claudeplayspokemon . Claude has been failing to to beat pokemon, a game effectively made for children, for _months_ now.

[satvikpendem]

My reference to "they" was to the bots in the movie, not the real life ones we have today, which I agree don't seem to have consciousness. My point of contention is that the ones in the movie don't either, they just appear to have it (for theatrical effect, but analyzed philosophically and technologically, I don't think so), and that's where we probably disagree.

[throwaway314155]

> for theatrical effect, but analyzed philosophically and technologically

If theatrical effect basically means "the intent of the production of the film", then they don't merely appear to do have sentience - they _do_ in the context of the filmmakers' vision. Whether you think it was plausible or not is sort of a different discussion I feel.

At any rate, I found Samantha to be a highly plausible ASI or whatever you want to call it. Johanson's performance really sold it for me.