Consciousness in Artificial Intelligence: Insights from the Science of Consciousness · HackerPapers discussions

Consciousness in Artificial Intelligence: Insights from the Science of Consciousness — mentioned by quixoticaxolotl

Thu, 29 Oct 2026 17:17:31 GMT

Whether LLMs are conscious is probably more interesting than whether they are "alive", and there's some criteria that consensus says they don't meet yet: https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.08708 Alive is really a poor choice of word here, because our criteria for living is so biologically focused. LLMs don't have homeostasis, reproduce, or otherwise demonstrate all the "usual" markers of living, precisely because they're ephemeral brains conjured into existence on a silicon substrate. As such, trying to ascribe any intuition about "life" to these virtual entities is only going to lead us astray in…

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

Consciousness in Artificial Intelligence: Insights from the Science of Consciousness — HN submission

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 21:52:29 GMT

Consciousness in AI: Insights from the Science of Consciousness (2023)

4 points; 1 discussion reply on HN. Paper and source history. A submission is not an endorsement.

Consciousness in Artificial Intelligence: Insights from the Science of Consciousness — mentioned by nDot_io

Mon, 01 Dec 2025 13:02:56 GMT

Do We Need Human-Like AI? The ultimate goal of current AI developments, spoken or unspoken, is to reach – and eventually exceed – human intelligence in every field. Of course, we always add: in a safe, controlled, conscious manner... But before we reach this goal, it is worth pausing for a moment and thinking about where we are rushing. To examine what "human behavior" actually is, and what got us to where we are now. I don't want to deal with evolutionary theories or the mystique of consciousness right now. Instead, I view the human as a "black box" and try to identify the components where…

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

Consciousness in Artificial Intelligence: Insights from the Science of Consciousness — mentioned by lucubratory

Tue, 05 Mar 2024 13:06:26 GMT

You might be interested in global workspace theory as a theory of consciousness. You can find more discussion of it, and other theories of consciousness as they relate to modern AI, in this very helpful paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.08708

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

Consciousness in Artificial Intelligence: Insights from the Science of Consciousness — mentioned by tkgally

Wed, 13 Dec 2023 00:34:58 GMT

One of the students in a course I’m teaching on language and AI (mentioned in another comment here) wrote something similar in a homework assignment the other day. We had discussed the paper “Consciousness in Artificial Intelligence: Insights from the Science of Consciousness” [1]. The student wrote: “One of the questions that I have been wondering about is whether there have been any discussions exploring the creation of a distinct category, akin to but different from consciousness, that better captures the potential for AI to be sentient. While ‘consciousness’ is a familiar term applicable…

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

Consciousness in Artificial Intelligence: Insights from the Science of Consciousness — mentioned by dsubburam

Sat, 25 Nov 2023 22:40:28 GMT

I am not well-read enough to opine on your reaction Re: Wittgenstein, esp. since I haven't read Sacks' work. But you are the first person I've encountered who appears to have an internalized understanding of these ideas, and so am curious to continue the conversation: > So sacks also concludes that we need other humans to acquire language (really, to become human in general) I do agree with Sacks' conclusion, having first come across a version of it in Hegel's dialectic--the dialectic of self vs. other. Or in my interpretation, of personhood and relationship. i.e. Personhood is forged through…

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

Consciousness in Artificial Intelligence: Insights from the Science of Consciousness — mentioned by tkgally

Mon, 13 Nov 2023 04:01:21 GMT

Yes, that is an important distinction. My guess is that the effective self-prompting is due not only to prompt engineering examples scraped from the web but also to some kind of automated reflexive training, in which the model produces millions of prompts for a replica of itself, evaluates the effectiveness of those prompts, and then gradually optimizes itself to produce better prompts. Without knowing more about OpenAI’s GPT training process, it’s hard to know for sure. But it is suggestive that when you input a short prompt into DALL-E 3, it outputs not only images but also a longer prompt…

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

Consciousness in Artificial Intelligence: Insights from the Science of Consciousness — mentioned by turtleyacht

Sat, 26 Aug 2023 15:38:41 GMT

Referenced work: Consciousness in Artificial Intelligence: Insights from the Science of Consciousness https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.08708

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

Consciousness in Artificial Intelligence: Insights from the Science of Consciousness — HN submission

Tue, 22 Aug 2023 10:26:30 GMT

Consciousness in AI: Insights from the Science of Consciousness

57 points; 126 discussion replies on HN. Paper and source history. A submission is not an endorsement.

Consciousness in Artificial Intelligence: Insights from the Science of Consciousness — HN submission

Tue, 22 Aug 2023 00:12:52 GMT

Consciousness in AI: Insights from the Science of Consciousness

2 points; 0 discussion replies on HN. Paper and source history. A submission is not an endorsement.

Consciousness in Artificial Intelligence: Insights from the Science of Consciousness — HN submission

Mon, 21 Aug 2023 14:24:52 GMT

Consciousness in Artificial Intelligence: Insights from the Science of Con

5 points; 0 discussion replies on HN. Paper and source history. A submission is not an endorsement.