Do LLMs form and recall memories? With the appropriate harnesses, sure. Yet, the reluctance to label LLMs as conscious remains. These beliefs are incompatible and dissonant.
It is completely different. Our brain rewires itself to store memories, there is no memory storage for humans.
LLMs still can’t reason (don’t confuse with the marketing word) , plan, or understand the world, no emotion, no subjective experience, no memory, no intent.
And yes I would change my opinion if it were logically different, other architectures may pave the way there, but not LLMs
We are conscious because we declare ourselves to be, by fiat, not because of evidence or a well-considered rationale. Our conception of consciousness or understanding isn't formal, checkable or objective, it's entirely grounded in subjectivity. As such, any and all arguments for or against consciousness or understanding in LLMs are based on feelings. We feel that we are conscious, therefore we are. Regarding anything else, "we'll know it when we see it." There's nothing rigorous about it.
though more an more animals seems to be conscious as we previously thought
I mean, I've replayed old memories in my head before. Sound, image and all. That's kind of like sending historic data into a prompt, isn't it? Of course it's not exactly the same thing, but the difference isn't exactly load-bearing, if you'll excuse the claudism. I feel like we're grasping at straws.
The difference is that human retrieval isn’t a read operation, reconsolidation means recalling a memory destabilizes it and re-stores an altered version. The act of remembering modifies the thing doing the remembering. An LLM’s weights don’t change when you put history in the prompt, and the prompt is discarded intact afterward. There is no state that would indicate any form of consciousness.
There is no form of subjective experience.
We used analogies from nature to describe computers and the same vocabulary and now because of this people now draw reverse conclusions that are not necessarily true