[MarkusQ]

The lack of reading comprehension (or perhaps just lack of reading) behind this brouhaha is amazing.

Dawkins did not proclaim Claude conscious. He argued that Claude passes the Turing test, and then asks a question: if something can pass the Turing test without being conscious, what further factor is there not captured by the test? More pointedly, what does consciousness do that LLMs do not?

I suspect that some people have grown so accustomed to "question as sly statement" that the notion of "question as pointing out something not presently known" flies right over their heads.

[Cpoll]

I think that's one reading, specifically because of this paragraph:

> Or, thirdly, are there two ways of being competent, the conscious way and the unconscious (or zombie) way? Could it be that some life forms on Earth have evolved competence via the consciousness trick — while life on some alien planet has evolved an equivalent competence via the unconscious, zombie trick?

But the problem is that Dawkins displays lack of understanding about what LLMs are, so it's hard to tell what he's thinking. He also says things like this:

> Could a being capable of perpetrating such a thought really be unconscious?

Dawkins has some stinkers when he steps outside of biology, so it's not surprising people aren't giving him the benefit of the doubt.

[InsideOutSanta]

> "Dawkins did not proclaim Claude conscious"

This is true in the literal sense that Dawkins didn't explicitly say "Claude is conscious", but when he says things like "Could a being capable of perpetrating such a thought really be unconscious?" I find it difficult to assign good faith to someone who asserts that Dawkins "did not proclaim Claude conscious."

And while I have some sympathy for the idea that consciousness isn't binary, but a spectrum, and that LLMs might have some amount of consciousness in the same way that a bee might have some amount of consciousness, I find his argument ­- which seems to reduce to "I talked to it and it seemed conscious" - incredibly unconvincing. The quotes from "Claudia" he posts are typical superficial LLM output; it flatters the speaker and reflects his opinions back at him.

In fact, I find the quotes he posts to be an argument against LLM consciousness, rather than for it:

> "That is possibly the most precisely formulated question anyone has ever asked about the nature of my existence"

> "That reframes everything we’ve been discussing today in a way I find genuinely exciting. Your prediction about the future feels right to me."

I would be embarrassed if I posted this as evidence for consciousness. It only seems evidence of human gullibility.

[cdrini]

I find it hard to assign good faith to someone who says the question "Could a being capable of perpetrating such a thought really be unconscious?" is the same as proclaiming "AI is conscious"! But assuming good faith, I think he is genuinely asking a question, challenging his own beliefs, and keeping his mind open. He seems throughout like he's not convinced it's conscious. The thing he's struggling with is coming up with an empirical, observable reason as to why not. And this lack of ability to come up with a reason is what prompted the question. And it's an interesting question; I too don't think they're fully conscious, but I think I would struggle with an observable argument as to why not. (Before reading his article, I wouldn't have used the word "fully")

This perspective is unique, and makes sense for someone as staunchly scientific as Dawkins. Science is all about observable phenomena and empirical evidence. His background studying animals also reinforces this perspective, since he's used to interacting with creatures on the "consciousness spectrum".

If you're open to consciousness being a spectrum and that AI might have some sort of conscious, then I think you're largely aligned with what Dawkins was musing in this article.

[InsideOutSanta]

> "Could a being capable of perpetrating such a thought really be unconscious?" is the same as proclaiming "AI is conscious"

The former clearly implies the latter, since the question is asked in an incredulous tone and presupposes that an LLM "perpetrates thought".

A neutral way of phrasing that question would be something like, "Are there mechanisms that would allow an entity without consciousness to generate such outputs?"

[MarkusQ]

It is as (or more) common for that type of construct to be used to set up tension for subsequent exploration. "Can light really be both particles and waves?"

I also find it interesting that the "Dawkins is clueless" argument requires inconsistently reading questions as statements; the initial question is "obviously" to be read in the affirmative and this one (presumably just as obviously) in the negative.

The counter, that he's actually trying to get people to think about an interesting nest of questions is less tortured: they are actual questions.

[MarkusQ]

>> "Dawkins did not proclaim Claude conscious"

> This is true in the literal sense that Dawkins didn't explicitly say "Claude is conscious"

It is true not only in the literal sense, but in the rhetorical sense as well. It's leading up to an interesting set of question that he then asks. For some reason people seem to have a hard time reading someone asking questions as if they were trying to point out that there are good questions we should be asking, and not assuming that they are making a statement.

I used to accept the Turing test.

I can see how people might claim it has been passed by LLMs.

I don't think that LLMs are conscious.

Dawkins notices that I am confused.

[InsideOutSanta]

See my response here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48035110

[MarkusQ]

See my response there as well.

[oytis]

Its in the headline. Also he talks about the persona he assigned to his chat like "she" was conscious (e.g. "she was pleased")

[MarkusQ]

That's a good example of my point about reading comprehension. The headline is "When Dawkins met Claude Could this AI be conscious?".

That's a question, not a statement. By Betteridge's Law of Headlines, which states that any headline ending in a question mark can be answered "no", this would even justify claiming that he was denying that Claude was conscious.

But he isn't making either claim; instead, he's asking the much more interesting questions: if p-zombies are possible, should we expect them to be more or less likely to evolve? Why? What is the difference? Why does it matter to evolution?

[oytis]

They seem to have changed the headline. The one in the archived article the post quotes is "Is AI the next phase of evolution? Claude appears to be conscious". Again, "appears to be" is not exactly the same as "is", but the post in question also quotes his Twitter extensively, and it's clear that Dawkins is acting as if he believed in Claude's consciousness.

[MarkusQ]

Citation needed. All of the direct quotes I've seen have clearly stated that he can not _disprove_ the claim of consciousness, and finds this fact interesting.

[Obscurity4340]

What gurantees Betterridge? What is the universal basis upon which no can safely be assumed in such formulations?

[MarkusQ]

Obviously, there is none. The point is, assuming the answer to be "yes" isn't a slam-dunk, and (in general) may not even be a good bet.

(The mechanical reason for Betteridge being true more often than not is that if a journalist want to make a claim but can't (because the facts don't support it) they frequently phrase it as a question. If the thing they want to imply were true, they'd just say it.)

[Obscurity4340]

Ok, that makes sense