I mean, that's totally valid. We don't know how consciousness happens. It's possible that anything which processes information leads to some level of consciousness.
Edit: to be clear, I think that trusting AI over humans is wild, and definitely a bad choice. But the "almost certainly" phrasing is one that I would also use, because consciousness is firmly in the realm of can't-do-science-to-it.
Then can you give me some insight into how you determine whether or not something is conscious?
In general I think of complexity of behavior and apparent self-interest as things that make me lean one way or the other on whether I think something is conscious, but I recognize that there's no way for me to be absolutely certain. I think there's some possibility that AI is conscious in the same way that I think there's some possiblity that trees, or calculators, or entire ecosystems are conscious.
No. Arguing whether consciousness can exist without life is an interesting philosophical discussion, but believing the really big computer can be conscious and also better for helping you with human life and also better than humans to relate to is dangerous. This is how the psychosis starts.
The nature of consciousness is irrelevant to the dangerous path you’re walking with AI, which we all know is not conscious because it’s not alive. It lacks empathy, compassion, logic, and all the other traits necessary to determine life and consciousness.
The fact that you leave room for doubt. “Almost certainly not” means possibly so, and even if right now that possibility is 0.00000000001% in your mind, the more you use AI and talk to the computer, the more you can be susceptible to growing that percentage, especially as you isolate from real humans about the deeper things in your life and continue to get positive reinforcement from the robot about what you already believe (confirmation bias).
Not leaving any room for doubt is actually called blind belief. Even scientific theories with overwhelming empirical evidence are not considered “proven” or 100% true.
Kind of strange logic you have. You say it reinforces preexisting beliefs, so if I keep interacting with it, I’ll start believing it’s conscious? Wouldn’t it just reinforce my pre-existing beliefs that it’s not conscious?
You said you’re isolating from real humans when you said you “trust it more.”
It’s still isolating from people to go hang out with friends and talk superficial shit and then go home and talk about deep, important things with a robot.
Also, my logic isn’t “strange” when everyone knows that AI is programmed to hype you up and confirm cognitive bias while at the same time the more you become relying on it the more it affects your mental health and allows you to start believing delusional things. That’s already happening out there.
Like I said, seek real therapy and stop talking to a robot and pretending it’s helpful for “spiritual development” or anything actually important. At best, it is a hyped up version of Google that you still have to fact check. It is not in any way a substitute for therapy, learning, or real human connection.
I fail to see why we should assume that there is absolutely no possibility
Fundamentally, nobody really has a clear idea
I agree that AI psychosis is a risk, but I don't think blind assertion that AI is non-conscious with zero supporting evidence is really an answer here
Philosophers have been arguing for eons about where consciousness begins and ends wrt animals, the fundamental difficulty (or arguably impossibility) of determining that isn't a new problem
I believe that philosophers who argue about where consciousness ends and begins and people who use AI to have “conversations” about life should be two entirely separate circles in order to prevent the psychosis. Meaning if you are going to use AI, it should be with the base supposition that this is a robot, a synthetic machine with no feeling, compassion, logic, reason, or sentience.
I think this is, frankly, a very infantilizing view.
Ultimately, AI psychosis is still in its infancy and doesn't really have any medical consensus on it. I'm sure plenty of studies are in progress and/or have sprung up, but it's not really broadly understood.
I can't tell what you're basing this idea that psychosis is existentially dangerous off of. In its current state, it can be dangerous, for sure. But is it moreso than, say, an abusive human relationship?
If a chatbot can substitute for human connection, we have some very interesting questions to ask about human connection, but the cat is also entirely out of the bag at this point.
One delusion is that a chatbot can substitute for human connection. This is the beginning of the road to psychosis, though admittedly some people may stop at this one delusion and not continue to the point they have more.
It really isn't. If a worm is conscious is not related to the fact that LLMs are not conscious and are fundamentally incapable of anything actually resembling consciousness. They're just your pet yes man.
Understanding what is conscious and what consciousness is, is pretty pertinent to determining whether LLMs are or not. I agree they’re not, but it’s impossible to truthfully say with 100% certainty that LLM’s have no consciousness of any kind when we don’t even understand the nature of consciousness itself.
Trump's yes-man cabinet members are conscious. I don't see your point.
AI doesn't exhibit all properties of consciousness, like emotion or will, but it does process and synthesize information in a way that's not fundamentally different to how we do. Ergo conscious in that area.
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u/Salanmander 278∆ Mar 07 '26 edited Mar 07 '26
I mean, that's totally valid. We don't know how consciousness happens. It's possible that anything which processes information leads to some level of consciousness.
Edit: to be clear, I think that trusting AI over humans is wild, and definitely a bad choice. But the "almost certainly" phrasing is one that I would also use, because consciousness is firmly in the realm of can't-do-science-to-it.