Comment by the_af | Hacker News Reader

Comment by the_af | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I don't believe LLMs have become sentient, nor can it "contemplate on its existence".

That said, I find some of your claims less compelling. I'm an atheist, so there's no "creator" for humans to be worshipped. But also, human intelligence/sentience came from non-intelligence/non-sentience, right? So something appeared where before it didn't exist (gradually, and with whatever convoluted and random accidents, but it did happen: something new where it didn't exist before). Therefore, it's not implausible that a new form of intelligence/sentience could be fast tracked again out of non-intelligence, especially if humans were directing its evolution.

By the way, not all scifi argues that machines/programs can evolve to develop humanity. Some scifi argues the contrary, and good scifi wonders "what makes us human?".

You say that "I don't believe LLMs have become sentient" nor contemplate. But what is the basis for your belief in this? I would think than an atheist would be more likely to have opposite beliefs.

I also concede that a "form" of intelligence/sentience could emerge. Presently the form is called "artificial," I'd say.

And you're right... not all scifi argues machine evolves to humanity. I meant to refer to that body of scifi that does. And the body that explores the "what make us human," indeed that's the good stuff. Alex Garland's Ex Machina comes to mind. I absolutely loved that film. The ending was chilling!

Thanks for the respectful reply. We agree on scifi!

As for atheism: it's merely the lack of belief that god exists (or in some definitions, the active belief that it doesn't exist). Nothing else, nothing more. Individual atheists may believe some other things, or not.

I believe some kind of intelligence could arise again, much like ours arose "out of nonintelligence". I just don't think this is it -- LLMs are very impressive but they are likely a dead end, and regardless, I don't think they are conscious by any meaningful definition of the word. It's mostly hype and gullible people at this point.

How do we prove humans are?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com