| > How can you know that? We haven't gotten sentience from the modeling we are doing at the moment so I am wondering why you are so confident that what we already know is sufficient to form an accurate model of brains as regards to consciousness. Because we can model the neuron. We’ve done it. We can replicate the exact affects of a single neuron. By induction we know we can do it for a network of neurons and thus the human brain. The only reason why it’s not done yet is a scaling issue. Also we don’t know if we done it with an LLM yet. The LLM uses neurons in a very different configuration then humans but we can’t know if that is conscious. The key is we don’t know but the output of the LLM is remarkably similar to what a conscious being would say so all evidence points to yes. It’s weak evidence… but it’s also the only evidence. > Well what's the point of bringing up the modelling of a brain in conversation about mechanically replicating the brain via pen and paper? If a replica is not necessary and you have no idea if the macro model we have is sufficient, what's even the point of this thread? Modeling the entire brain means you’ve modeled consciousness. But if consciousness is a subset of the brain then we don’t need to model the entire brain. A replica is not necessary but it is one path forward to modelling consciousness. If a replica was the only way we wouldn’t even be having a debate on whether an LLM was conscious because an LLM is obviously not a replica. > My original point was that upthread poster said we can mechanically (i.e. without any thought, just repeating a process by hand) produce exactly what an LLM produces, while we cannot do the same for a brain (rat or human is not relevant). Right and we don’t know whether what we reproduce by hand represents consciousness. We don’t know if what we emulated with the blue brain project of the rat brain represents consciousness. We don’t know if a rat is conscious either. The possibility is quite likely though because the output of both the LLM and the rat conform with our intuitive notion of what consciousness is. > I feel that even after all the content in this thread, that point remains true and factual - LLMs are not a blackbox to the extent that brains are. The blue brain project shows that the brain is not a black box as much as you think it is… it can be copied and stored and observed in a computer and we can emulate signaling traveling through the brain. Although we haven’t done this for the human brain we can logically infer this possibility because it’s been done for the rat brain and the human brain is just the rat brain scaled up and connected differently. This is the same amount of understanding we have for the LLM. We can copy it and store it and observe it and send signals through it. Both are black boxes in the sense that the sheer complexity of what is observable cannot be comprehended. Why do we need source code for a binary in order to modify it? Why do we not understand encrypted data even though we have it our hands and can observe every facet of it. Having and being able to manipulate the data raw does not mean we comprehend the data. The lack of comprehension IS the black box. Something does not have to be a literal black box in order for us to use the term “black box”. In fact black box is a misnomer. Better to say we don’t understand how an LLM works anymore than we understand how the human brain works. The godfather of AI… the one who kick started the revolution of deep learning in the last decade has this to say about AI: https://youtube.com/shorts/zKM-msksXq0?si=BJ5WQuAeJADddiA5 |