| If you want to think about this topic, you must define what AI is, and what consciousness is.
Otherwise this is just noise. So let take a stab at it, and you call me crazy. AI: the entity/system that more or less pass the turning test. That is my definition, not the best, but enough for this discussion. Consciousness: property of a system/entity able to (both):
- reflect on its existence
- subject to subjective experience Again, not the best definition, but precise enough to start the discussion. Why a subjective experience? I want to exclude sensors (i.e. camera) but include perception altered by your experience. Now we can debate. I think LLM can pass the turning test whith some harness. My opinion. I think LLM can produce coherent discourses on their existence, at least as much as you average human. Now regarding the subjective experience, that becomes interesting. I think Anthropic research tend to show that when middeling with the activation at runtime, the LLM is able to notice that something is off. I think this is a subjective experience. My opinion. Based on those (imperfect) definitions, call me crazy, I think LLM can be called conscious. This doesn't give them any superpower or any legal right. They just check the boxes of the definition. |