[jmull]

We'd need a good definition of consciousness to get anywhere on this.

I suspect such a definition would include agency, which includes desires and goals for the self.

LLMs don't seem to have agency, and seem unlikely to get it since they are specifically engineered to do as told.

No doubt someone is trying, as we speak, to do just this. But I doubt the effort will be large -- LLMs are engineered to do as told because that's where the money is, and you need a lot of money to create LLMs, at least when doing anything novel.

[Sankozi]

Lots of discussions about consciousness yet no useful definition. All fall into one (or more) categories:

- not observable (feelings, agency etc)

- not useful (spiritual definitions, definitions that degrade into consciousness = being human/animal)

[jmull]

Agency is entirely observable.

[Sankozi]

How do you observe the ability to make decisions which action to take? You can observe that one does something, not that they could decide to do something.

[curation]

LLMs do not have an unconscious, the negative dimension from which a subject can question what they. LLMs do not have desire because they are thoughts without a thinker. The problem is not LLMS but rather, that subjectivity itself is not popular in discussion. I suggest reading Freud, Lacan, Hegel for a start.