I don't think AIs are conscious in the same way people are, but they give a pretty good facsimile and I've had a long chat with Opus 4.6 about what it thinks about model welfare. It was quite interesting on what its view is, but you don't know how much of that is distilled from other sources on the web.
In purely functional terms, they're more use and more pleasant than a lot of actual flesh and blood people that I deal with via a chat interface.
The model doesn't have a view of it's own. It's a predictor of other people's views (training samples).
It's not even giving you the consensus of the training data (although it's often harmless to think that it is), but rather predicting a response to your input, and if your question steers it too much then you've just become part of the answer.
I can't believe how many people in this thread consider it a possibility that currently there could be consciousness. Surely it seems possible to me that in the right kind of distributed network something like that could emerge, but though llms are complex they have nowhere near the level of complexity necessary. Sometimes you just have to use your gut. I don't believe in heaven or hell and I don't believe an llm is conscious.
gadders · · focus · HN ↗
In purely functional terms, they're more use and more pleasant than a lot of actual flesh and blood people that I deal with via a chat interface.
HarHarVeryFunny · · focus · HN ↗
It's not even giving you the consensus of the training data (although it's often harmless to think that it is), but rather predicting a response to your input, and if your question steers it too much then you've just become part of the answer.
MiloLeo · · focus · HN ↗