LLMs do not think. Our poor human brains are just fooled by the accuracy in which they predict words. Maybe one day we'll invent an AI that does think, but LLMs are not it.
I understand that you're responding within the thread, but to take this back to the original point, which is about human dignity, justice and labor:
LLMs do not need to “think” for the point to be valid. Chess engines do not “think” and do not have any conception of what they're really doing, but they still win at chess every time. The worry is that AI will put an end to human dignity, not that it “thinks too much”.
Then it doesn’t matter if LLMs are better than us, at least unless they can be shown to have equivalent depth of experience.
But if AIs become superintelligent and plot an overthrow of humanity, it won't matter what our conception of identity or dignity is, the AI will still kill us. The AI doesn't ascribe dignity or worth to humans. It only pursues goals.
Words can have multiple meanings. Feet can be the things on the end of legs, or a unit of measurement.
LLMs process data in a more intelligent manner than previous systems. The solution, whatever it is, is presented in a thoughtful manner to the system operator. "Thinking" seems like a pretty convenient term for the process. It doesn't have to imply sentience or sapience.
Its the same with "Learning" or "Training" these models aren't actually learning, and they certainly aren't being trained. But these words are convenient shorthand that conveys a similar process.
The battle for language prescriptivists isn't just to ban a certain use of a word, its to find a convenient alternative. I dont see any here.
They are, at their core, predictive text engines.
And this is is just my opinion, yours may of course differ. Maybe you believe humans are just predictive text engines
Not on topic, but I dont think thats going to be relevant.
If a human thinks something is conscious, and feels bad if it gets hurt, it will probably get treated as such.
So why couldn't a large collection of statistical variables be conscious? Mathematically, it's the same thing.
They're high on their own supply, if you will.