[mjg2]

I cannot tell if you are asserting my comment is chauvinistic with your use of "we." If that is so: that's a poor counter to my point or assessment of my stance because it assumes I'm making a baseless argument as a "proud human."

My original comment (roughly "there's no intelligence in this article, nor sentience in LLMs") is in response to the blog post's buried lede (that the cumulative activity of LLMs has accrued to a weight of "AGI is around the corner" or "there is artificial consciousness in this matrix").

To be clear, I'm not saying LLMs are useless or a wrong direction in development of "AI," but rather it's the Fool's Gold for the path towards AGI, the pursuit of the academic field of Artificial Intelligence research. A research that I've been abreast of for years before this new age of language models that has made everyone with a keyboard an arm chair expert.

Also, thank you for the book recommendation, it's on my list! :)

[simpaticoder]

I read your comment as criticizing the OP's story as pointless and unoriginal. My comment elucidated the point of the original story, and what I think is the point of the second story.

[mjg2]

Roger that, thank you. w/r/g your recapitulation of my point: yes, the story is unoriginal and pointless, and the HN community seems to eat it up-- isn't that odd.

So I still disagree with your elucidated point (as you end with "which is valid"): the OP author is using prior art fiction to bolster their opinion of LLM-based software tools as being a possible vector of sentience, not to disarm our chauvinism like the original author intended. If OP wanted to make that point, they could have written a critical essay instead of farming out their thoughts as tokens.

But still, I look forward to reading the book you suggested to understand and appreciate your perspective more.

[simpaticoder]

The point is valid regardless of whether you judge LLM to be sentient or not, because the point is to say "don't let your prejudice about substrate bias your decision". Or in other words, if you're going to weigh something don't tip the scale. This is good advice whatever the outcome of the measurement.

Blindsight is a remarkable book - I hope you enjoy it!

[mjg2]

Ah I see now that I am in agreement with you, thank you for being a patient interlocutor. I do not discard and rule out the possibility of a different substrate being the well-spring from which sentience emerges.

Plainly, based on the current ground trodded and the trajectory laid out by the frontier AI labs, I do not have concrete evidence/proof of sentience having emerged from LLM-based software tools as of June 4 2026 nor do I expect it to happen in the future based on my understanding and observations of this technology. I'm not excluding the possibility but wielding skepticism. I am open to being proven wrong with new discoveries.

Which is why (to return to my lashing of the dead horse) I don't see OP's post as worthwhile. Their post reiterates a point that is already valid (the prior art) with no new substantial discovery. Which is why "unoriginal and pointless" is apt, a novel idea was not presented; it's just some vain virtue signaling.