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When Dawkins met Claude – Could this AI be conscious?

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Re: When Dawkins met Claude – Could this AI be conscious?

#271

Post by BoredomIsFun »

SuperV1234 wrote: post #12
search_facility wrote: post #6

Since the times GPT-2 was reimplemented inside Minecraft - its quite obvious LLMs are just math. Nothing else, by nature. Modern LLMs have the same math as in GPT-2 - just bigger and with extra stuff around - and math is the only area of human knowledge with perfect flawless reductionism, straight to the roots. It was build that way since the beginning, so philosophy have no say in this :) And because of that flawles…

We are not fundamentally different. Chemical reactions are just math.

> Chemical reactions are just math.

No, it is quantum mechanics. Physical world is not reducible to math, it has been long proven since early 20th century.

Re: When Dawkins met Claude – Could this AI be conscious?

#272

Post by gehsty »

thebruce87m wrote: post #225
gehsty wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LLMs are word prediction engines. They clearly are not conscious, they are just guessing what words should come next.

> They clearly are not conscious Consciousness is emergent. A human is not conscious by our definition until the moment they are. How will we be able to identify the singularity when it comes? I feel like this is what the article is really addressing. > LLMs are word prediction engines Humans can also do this too, so what are the missing parts for consciousness? Close a few loops on learning pipeline and we might be…

I feel like it’s quite straightforward - if it’s a living breathing thing it can be conscious, if it is a set of man made mathamatical models that can be switched of, it can be intelligent, but not conscious.

Re: When Dawkins met Claude – Could this AI be conscious?

#273

Post by gehsty »

zwischenzug wrote: post #195
gehsty wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LLMs are word prediction engines. They clearly are not conscious, they are just guessing what words should come next.

How do we know that that isn't essentially how our minds work?

It probably is, but the difference is that the signals are happening in a persons and not a gpu.

Re: When Dawkins met Claude – Could this AI be conscious?

#274

Post by emp17344 »

Avshalom wrote: post #201

Just once I want to see some old dude waxing about LLM-conciousness post a chat log where the LLM is like "your book is an incoherent mess of tautologies and incorrect statistics. I bet your dick looks like a road kill squirrel".

It can’t do that, because it isn’t conscious ;)

Re: When Dawkins met Claude – Could this AI be conscious?

#275

Post by boxed »

qsera wrote: post #265
boxed wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now you have do define pleasure AND pain without using the word "consciousness" as that would be circular logic. Is pleasure then any reward function? Then a mathematical set of equations performed by a human by writing on a piece of paper can qualify. Does that mean pen and paper is conscious? Or certain equations?

>Now you have do define pleasure AND pain without using the word "consciousness" as that would be circular logic. Yes, so consciousness is inextricably tied to the ability to feel. In fact, I think consciousness is the ability to feel. Hence to even ask the question "Is LLMs conscious?" is absurd. It is not at all about intelligent behavior. That is what I think.

> In fact, I think consciousness is the ability to feel.

Just having senses is enough? So a thermometer or a camera is conscious?

Re: When Dawkins met Claude – Could this AI be conscious?

#276

Post by boxed »

pydry wrote: post #264
boxed wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those terms are not really how we use the word "conscious" in any other situation though. With a definition like that you would say a rock is unconscious (I guess reasonable), a pretty cold bacteria is unconscious (hmm.. ok I guess?), and a warm bacteria is conscious (now I'm not on board anymore). We have to be WAY more specific in what the word even means!

I dont see a problem here. A warm bacterium is no more conscious than I am when I've been knocked out. Bacteria are alive but they arent conscious ever.

With your definition they clearly are. They move around, they respond to their environment and take decisive actions when needed. If a human does that they are absolutely "conscious" if you only mean it as the sense of conscious/unconscious.

If you define that bacteria are never conscious, you should be able to come up with a definition that doesn't accidentally make them conscious in your definition of the word without just arbitrarily adding "oh, but not bacteria" at some point.

I'll state it again: DEFINE THE WORD. People just argue and scream at each other and no one defined their terms. It's absolute madness to us who see that this is what happens. It's like arguing over the color of the sky and using the word "fnord" and no side has defined the frequency of light that "fnord" should correspond to. BOTH sides are wrong in that situation, because they both don't define the word.

Re: When Dawkins met Claude – Could this AI be conscious?

#277

Post by rolisz »

ofjcihen wrote: post #36

Incredibly confusing that people who are otherwise of sound mind seem to fall for this. Especially confusing when it’s someone who knows how algorithms work. Barring connectivity issues when’s the last time you messaged an LLM and it just decided to ignore you? Conversely when has it ever messaged you unprompted? Never, because they’re incapable of doing anything independently because there is no sense of self.

Opus 4.7 starts to try to shut down conversations if you are rude to it (it's easier to do this via API, look up what @repligate is doing).

And unprompted messaging: OpenClaw can message you unprompted (yes, there's a cronjob behind it, but the instructions matter and it won't always message you, only when there's something relevant).

Re: When Dawkins met Claude – Could this AI be conscious?

#278

Post by notnullorvoid »

qnleigh wrote: post #155

It's easy, and very tempting to dismiss this sort of thing. But given how little we know about the human brain, let alone consciousness, I don't see how we can be confident that LLMs aren't conscious. I've had a lot of thoughts and conversations over the years that changed my mind on what consciousness likely requires. One was the realization that a purely mechanical computer can, in principle simulate the laws of ph…

I do think simulating consciousness is within the realm of possibility. I also think it's absurdly silly to think LLMs (no matter their size) are conscious, if for no other reason than they can't actively learn.

I would maybe be comfortable classifying them as a snapshot of consciousness, but when you are interacting with an LLM it's far from interacting with a conscious entity.

Re: When Dawkins met Claude – Could this AI be conscious?

#279

Post by qnleigh »

notnullorvoid wrote: post #278
qnleigh wrote: post #155

It's easy, and very tempting to dismiss this sort of thing. But given how little we know about the human brain, let alone consciousness, I don't see how we can be confident that LLMs aren't conscious. I've had a lot of thoughts and conversations over the years that changed my mind on what consciousness likely requires. One was the realization that a purely mechanical computer can, in principle simulate the laws of ph…

I do think simulating consciousness is within the realm of possibility. I also think it's absurdly silly to think LLMs (no matter their size) are conscious, if for no other reason than they can't actively learn. I would maybe be comfortable classifying them as a snapshot of consciousness, but when you are interacting with an LLM it's far from interacting with a conscious entity.

What does ability to learn have to do with consciousness? A person with severe memory loss/learning impairment is presumably still conscious!

Re: When Dawkins met Claude – Could this AI be conscious?

#280

Post by search_facility »

thrownthatway wrote: post #210
search_facility wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can not simulate my brain, it's a huge stretch to imply this. But with LLMs - anyone can simulate LLM. LLM can be simulated without any uncertainties in pen and paper and a lot of time. Does it mean that 100 tons of paper plus 100 years of time (numbers are just examples) calculating long formulae makes this pile of paper consiousness? Imho answer is definitive no.

I don’t think anyone is arguing the silicon is conscious. Similarly the paper. What about the agent doing the calculations . He may be conscious. Or anyway, we can’t rule it out.

With both cases the agent doing something is human. And human beings are indeed conscious. Outside human needs LLM are useless.

Math, as a tool, is just a proxy for people using LLMs, as well as GPUs spending cycles on calculating the math

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