It is interesting to see that in a time when a lot of people accept the theory of materialism for the human brain (i.e the view that everything is physical and the mind is a product of brain), the same people tend to have a "hidden" dualist view on LLMs.
Suddenly, they claim that what happens in the brain cannot be replicated anywhere else because "something" is lacking, but either they don't say what it is, or it is stated without any strong scientific basis.
I think that the simplest explanation is that it is hard for those people to imagine consciousness outside of biological systems and they try to rationalize it.
That's the sense I get from this post. Lots of emphatic proclamations, virtually zero actual argument. There's a statement that "consciousness is very likely biological"... and then that's it. No argument for it, no citation.
If you want to argue that AIs cannot be conscious, that's fine. But the argument has to take the form of something like "Consciousness requires this, this, and this, and these are properties that AI does not have and cannot have for this reason, this reason, and this reason."
I've never seen that argument. Because it basically cannot exist. Consciousness almost by definition is a subjective experience, and the only reason I'm pretty sure that other humans are conscious is that I'm a human and I'm conscious.
About your last point, I thought so too a few years ago, but interestingly the science of consciousness is an emerging field, although empirical testing is still hard to do (see for instance <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2zv4jlo2Nw" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2zv4jlo2Nw ).
addag · · focus · HN ↗
I think that the simplest explanation is that it is hard for those people to imagine consciousness outside of biological systems and they try to rationalize it.
EPWN3D · · focus · HN ↗
If you want to argue that AIs cannot be conscious, that's fine. But the argument has to take the form of something like "Consciousness requires this, this, and this, and these are properties that AI does not have and cannot have for this reason, this reason, and this reason."
I've never seen that argument. Because it basically cannot exist. Consciousness almost by definition is a subjective experience, and the only reason I'm pretty sure that other humans are conscious is that I'm a human and I'm conscious.
addag · · focus · HN ↗