Current LLMs prove that the Turing Test was insufficient all along. But they also prove that intelligence != consciousness. One can, after all, be conscious without a thought in one's head. We certainly have ongoing work in identifying the neural correlates of consciousness in animals, none of which is going to be remotely applicable to machines. We're genuinely blind to the question of whether a sufficiently large neural net can exhibit flashes of subjective experience.

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qsera 13 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

They are not intelligent. And they won't pass turing tests if it cannot count or some simple thing like that..

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dpark 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> But they also prove that intelligence != consciousness.

They prove no such thing. We can't even prove consciousness in other humans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_other_minds

	▲	psychoslave an hour ago \| parent [-]
		On that regard, arguing with thermometer is not a thing generally, but people arguing with LLMs is certainly common enough now to not be considered a completely marginal case. Given some people fall in love or move to suicide after interacting with these models, they are certainly different from even the most beloved dialectical rubber duck.

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brookst 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Obligatory Blightsight recommendation for intelligence != consciousness.

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marshray 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

That book is badass on so many levels. I'd just started it again yesterday.

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exe34 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

that book messes with my head every time I read it, it's like I go through life in a detached way for several weeks. I need to read it again!

	▲	ninalanyon 37 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I read it once, was immensely impressed, can't bear to read it again. In fact I find most of what I have read from Peter Watts to be brilliant but disconcerting and uncomfortable.

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dreamcompiler an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Blindsight

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api 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That was one of my thoughts years ago after playing with early ChatGPT and local llama1: this proves that intelligence and consciousness do not necessitate one another and may not even be directly related.

I’ve kind of thought this for many years though. A bacterium and a tree are probably conscious. I think it’s a property of life rather than brains. Our brains are conscious because they are alive. They are also intelligent.

The consciousness of a bacterium or a tree might be radically unlike ours. It might not have a sense of self in the same way we do, or experience time the same way, but it probably has some form of experience of existing.

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digitaltrees 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

But why? A roomba has senses, and can access them when it has power and respond to stimulation. When it runs out of power it no longer experiences this sensation and no longer responds to stimulus.

How is that different than a cell?

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dpark 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You simply defined consciousness as life, which seems like an unusual but also not very useful definition.

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throwyawayyyy 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I think this gets to the conflation we naturally have with consciousness and a sense of self. Does a tree have a sense of self? I imagine probably not, a tree acts more like a clonal colony than a single organism.

	▲	kortex 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Is someone tripped out on mushrooms experience ego death and total disruption of sense of self still conscious? They may even contend they are more conscious than normal life, what with all the communing with the universe and whatnot. Trees react to the world around them in many ways.

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digitaltrees 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Wrong based on what criteria? Or are we just moving the goal post because we are uncomfortable with the idea that neural networks might be conscious?

If a single cell organism moves towards light and away from a rock, we say it’s aware. When a roomba vacuum does the same we try to create alternate explanations. Why? Based on the criteria applied to one it’s aware. If there is some other criteria, say we find out the roomba doesn’t sense the wall but has a map of the room and is using GPS and a programmed route, then the criteria of “no fixed programs that relate to data outside of the system, would justify saying the roomba isn’t “aware”.

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throwyawayyyy 7 hours ago | parent [-]

I'm mainly saying it's impossible to know, at least without a theory of consciousness that doesn't exist. Do we consider bacteria to be conscious though, is there something like to be a single cell? I can easily believe there is something like to be an insect.

	▲	digitaltrees 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I’d argue it’s a spectrum with awareness being simple response to stimuli at one and self awareness of and reflection on a subjective experience across time on the other.