> Dumping tokens into a pile of linear algebra doesn't magically create sentience.

More precisely: we don't know which linear algebra in particular magically creates sentience.

Whole universe appears to follow laws that can be written as linear algebra. Our brains are sometimes conscious and aware of their own thoughts, other times they're asleep, and we don't know why we sleep.

"Our brains are governed by physics": true

"This statistical model is governed by physics": true

"This statistical model is like our brain": what? no

You don't gotta believe in magic or souls or whatever to know that brains are much much much much much much much much more complex than a pile of statistics. This is like saying "oh we'll just put AI data centers on the moon". You people have zero sense of scale lol

They didn’t say “statistical model”, they said “linear algebra”.

It very much appears that time evolution is unitary (with the possible exception of the born rule). That’s a linear algebra concept.

Generally, the structure you describe doesn’t match the structure of the comment you say has that structure.

Ok, how about "a pile of linear algebra [that is vastly simpler and more limited than systems we know about in nature which do experience or appear to experience subjective reality]"?

Context is important.

Which is why I phrased it the way I did.

We, all of us collectively, are deeply, deeply ignorant of what is a necessary and sufficient condition to be a being that has an experience. Our ignorance is broad enough and deep enough to encompass everything from panpsychism to solipsism.

The only thing I'm confident of, and even then only because the possibility space is so large, is that if (if!) a Transformer model were to have subjective experience, it would not be like that of any human.

Note: That doesn't say they do or that they don't have any subjective experience. The gap between Transformer models and (working awake rested adult human) brains is much smaller than the gap between panpsychism and solipsism.

> we don't know why we sleep

Garbage collection, for one thing. Transfer from short-term to long-term memory is another. There's undoubtedly more processes optimized for or through sleep.

Those are things we do while asleep, but do not explain why we sleep. Why did evolution settle on that path, with all the dangers of being unconscious for 4-20 hours a day depending on species? That variation is already pretty weird just by itself.

Worse, evolution clearly can get around this, dolphins have a trick that lets them (air-breathing mammals living in water) be alert 24/7, so why didn't every other creature get that? What's the thing that dolphins fail to get, where the cost of its absence is only worthwhile when the alternative is as immediately severe as drowning?

Because dolphins are also substantially less affected by the day/night cycle. It is more energy intensive to hunt in the dark (less heat, less light), unless you are specifically optimized for it.

That's a just-so story, not a reason. Evolution can make something nocturnal, just as it can give alternating-hemisphere sleep. And not just nocturnal, cats are crepuscular. Why does animal sleep vary from 4-20 hours even outside dolphins?

Sure, there's flaws with what evolution can and can't do (it's limited to gradient descent), but why didn't any of these become dominant strategies once they evolved? Why didn't something that was already nocturnal develop the means to stay awake and increase hunting/breeding opportunities?

Why do insects sleep, when they don't have anything like our brains? Do they have "Garbage collection" or "Transfer from short-term to long-term memory"? Again, some insects are nocturnal, why didn't the night-adapted ones also develop 24/7 modes?

Everything about sleep is, at first glance, weird and wrong. There's deep (and surely important) stuff happening there at every level, not just what can be hypothesised about with a few one-line answers.

Yes, actually. Insects have both garbage collection & memory transfer processes during sleep. They rely on the same circadian rhythm for probably the same reasons.

And the answer to "Why not always awake?" is very likely "Irreversible decision due to side effects". Core system decisions like bihemispheric vs unihemispheric sleep can likely only be changed in relatively simple lifeforms because the cost of negative side effects increases in more complex lifeforms due to all the additional systems depending on the core system "API".

I'm objecting to a positive claim, not making a universal statement about the impossibility of non-human sentience.

Seriously - the language used is a wild claim in the context.

And that's fine, but I was doing the same to you :)

Consciousness (of the qualia kind) is still magic to us. The underpants gnomes of philosophy, if you'll forgive me for one of the few South Park references that I actually know: Step 1: some foundation; step 2: ???; step 3: consciousness.

Right, I don't disagree with that. I just really objected to the "must", and I was using "pile of linear algebra" to describe LLMs as they currently exist, rather than as a general catch-all for things which an be done with/expressed in linear algebra.

Agreed; "disorienting" is perhaps a poor choice of word, loaded as it is. More like "difficult to determine the context surrounding a prompt and how to start framing an answer", if that makes more sense.

That still necessarily implies agency and cognition, which is not a given.

Exactly. No matter how well you simulate water, nothing will ever get wet.

And if you were in a simulation now?

Your response is at the level of a thought terminating cliche. You gain no insight on the operation of the machine with your line of thought. You can't make future predictions on behavior. You can't make sense of past responses.

It's even funnier in the sense of humans and feeling wetness... you don't. You only feel temperature change.

You're replying to me, but I don't agree with your take - if you simulate the universe precisely enough, presumably it must be indistinguishable from our experienced reality (otherwise what... magic?).

My objection was:

1. I don't personally think anything similar is happening right now with LLMs. 2. I object to the OP's implication that it is obvious such a phenomenon is occurring.