There obviously is an argument to counter, which is that the way LLMs work does not appear to be in line with any definition of consciousness we have right now. If you disagree with that, then feel free to provide a definition of consciousness that would credibly account for the notion of LLMs being conscious.

It’s also rather absurd to claim that consciousness is spiritual woohoo nonsense given that we all have an internal experience. That’s fundamental denial of the observed reality. Consciousness does not in any way presuppose that humans are special, but it is a property of the configuration of physical systems where matter is arranged in a particular way to produce patterns that constitute internal experience.

Most of the food comes from things that die at upper levels and fall down to the bottom, like say a whale carcass. And as the article notes, since the temperature at these depths is really low their bodies act as a larder where food is preserved for a long time.

China, Cuba, Vietnam, and DPRK have all fixed the issue and have the working class in charge.

that’s a rather narrow definition of consciousness

While we don’t have a definitive model for what consciousness is, there are definitely compelling arguments on the subject, and the book I linked earlier from the author clearly demonstrates that he has thought about this subject more than you have.

Seems to me that the only one who’s not adding anything to the conversation here is you actually. You’ve provided no argument of your own and you’ve failed to engage with anything I said. You just keep repeating how Ted Chiang hasn’t proven his case definitively, which he has not, but you’ve provided zero counter agument of your own.

I mean self reflection in the base sense of how our minds operate, and I don’t think the quality is unique to humans either. It’s almost certain that many animals have a sufficient level of introspection as well. I’d view it more as a gradient rather than a binary switch.

But yeah, in general, I don’t see any reason why a software system could not be self aware or conscious. As long as its able to express these types of patterns within it, then we should assume it would have a similar type of internal experience as well.

Right, an agentic harness provides a feedback loop but we shouldn’t be too quick to assume that of itself is sufficient. A thermostat hooked up to an air conditioner is also a system which exists in a feedback loop, but hardly any rational person would suggest that the climate control system in your house is conscious as a result.

So, while some form of a feedback loop is likely a necessary condition for any form of adaptive behavior, it is insufficient for consciousness on its own, as even a thermostat has a feedback loop without any semblance of inner experience. At a minimum, I’d argue, the system must construct an internal model of its environment from sensory data and must also represent itself as a distinct entity within that model. This can be embodiment or stream of data from a computer system or a network. I would call a system that can distinguish me from not‑me and update its self‑representation through interaction as being functionally self-aware. However, functional self-awareness does not strictly imply subjective experience. A navigation robot that tracks its own coordinates has such a model but it needs not be conscious. Consciousness requires a higher‑order capacity where the system must not only represent itself but also reflect on its own mental states, that is, think about its own thoughts. Having such meta‑cognitive ability, which builds upon functional self‑awareness by adding recursive modeling of internal processes, is what I take to be the minimal sufficient condition for consciousness. I’m partial to the view that raw sensation without second‑order awareness lacks the reflexive quality central to our own subjective experience.

What he’s saying is that it seems rather implausible that we’d skip all the stages of development and jump straight to consciousness which is a reasonable position to hold. His argument is that creating a simulacrum of consciousness is much easier just like faking a moon landing is much easier than actually going to the moon. Nowhere is he saying he would just never believe it no matter what either. He rather says that he hasn’t seen any convincing evidence to suggest that LLMs are a way to create consciousness rather than simply write text in a way that makes humans project consciousness onto the system.

Also, not sure what you’re saying with your second quote. Why wouldn’t anyone ever do the steps of actually creating a proper feedback loop which would have some basis for consciousness?

What they’re really saying is that we need more precise terminology because the terms people throw around right now are incredibly loose, and can mean whatever people want.

It’s not just the US though. None of these people have been punished in any western country, none of them are in jail. The whole Epstein fiasco proves beyond all doubt that Marxists were right all along. We live in a class society, and the laws of this society are created by the ruling capitalist class which subjugates and exploits the working majority. Any democracy that exists is reserved for the ruling elites.

His argument is that generating statistically plausible text should not be treated as proof of consciousness. The reason why embodiment tends to be brought up is because it creates a basis for a system to have self awareness. You end up with a feedback loop where the system has to model the world and itself within it, and taking actions feeds back into the system so it has to be able to recognize itself as it interacts with its environment. Ted Chiang wrote a great novella where he discusses this idea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lifecycle_of_Software_Objects

Of course, it is possible that you could have some other type of feedback loop that produces self awareness and consciousness, but from what we understand of how LLMs work, it seems highly unlikely that statistical token generation is sufficient for that.

I do agree that he fails to really make the argument for why a disembodies intelligence could not be conscious. In my opinion, the strongest part of the article is at the end where he shows how the whole constitution kabuki theatre that Anthropic came up with clearly wouldn’t afford any protections to an entity that was conscious, so they don’t really believe what they’re saying.

I mean we do have our internal experience which is ultimately what matters.

Personally, I’m partial to the higher-order theory of consciousness which postulates that consciousness constitutes patterns of thought that arise in response to first-order mental states. So, an external stimulus produces a pattern within the neural network which represents a sensation, and then if a pattern arises in response to that pattern, that is an experience of that sensation. Given this framework we could ask whether LLMs experience higher order patterns in response to external stimulus. We would have a clear question to ask which is whether the system can observe itself.

That’s really the elephant in the room. The US is very openly threatening China with war, but also expects China to fuel their war machine.

welcome to the wonderful world of npm

same, I’d love computers to actually start getting cheap

loads fine for me, here’s the text:

China Achieves Mass Production Breakthrough with 360TB Glass Hard Drives Researchers at Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) have achieved small-scale mass production of glass-based hard drives, a breakthrough that could transform enterprise cold data storage. Each glass disc can store a staggering 360 terabytes of data across 400 stacked layers, using laser “carving” technology that writes data into the internal structure of the glass medium.

China Achieves Mass Production Breakthrough with 360TB Glass Hard Drives

Researchers at Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) have achieved small-scale mass production of glass-based hard drives, a breakthrough that could transform enterprise cold data storage. Each glass disc can store a staggering 360 terabytes of data across 400 stacked layers, using laser “carving” technology that writes data into the internal structure of the glass medium.

The technology, developed in collaboration with Wuhan-based startup YiYao Technology, uses femtosecond laser pulses to create microscopic modifications within glass discs, effectively encoding data in three dimensions. The 400-layer stacking capability represents a quantum leap in storage density compared to traditional magnetic hard drives or even solid-state drives.

Performance specifications reveal both the technology’s strengths and current limitations. Write speeds range between 8 and 10 MB/s, while read speeds reach 50 to 200 MB/s. The drives are write-once media — data cannot be erased or rewritten once stored — making them unsuitable for active storage workloads but ideal for archival and cold storage applications.

YiYao Technology was founded in Wuhan and has attracted top talent from the global optical storage community. Notably, a former chief researcher from Microsoft’s Project Silica has joined the company as co-founder, bringing invaluable expertise in glass-based data storage — a field Microsoft has researched for years but has yet to commercialize at scale.

The target market for these glass drives is enterprise cold data storage, a segment currently dominated by magnetic tape. Tape storage, while inexpensive, suffers from slow access times, mechanical degradation, and limited lifespan. Glass storage offers several compelling advantages: exceptional durability (glass discs are resistant to water, electromagnetic fields, and extreme temperatures), extremely long data retention measured in centuries rather than decades, and higher storage density per physical volume.

“If you think about data centers that need to store petabytes of archival data for regulatory compliance or historical preservation, glass storage is a game-changer,” said an industry expert familiar with the technology. “The write-once nature is actually a feature for cold storage — it guarantees data integrity over time without risk of accidental deletion or corruption.”

The HUST and YiYao team are now working to scale production volumes and improve write speeds. While the current 8-10 MB/s write rate is acceptable for archival workflows, faster writing would open additional use cases. The long-term vision includes competing not just with tape but with traditional hard drives for certain nearline storage applications.

China’s glass storage breakthrough represents a rare convergence of academic research, industry talent, and manufacturing capability — and it positions YiYao Technology at the forefront of what could be the next generation of data storage infrastructure.

A perfect RAID setup does not exi…

Not really, I just used an example of the kind of fuckery that would be possible given that people do ask llms for medical advise. Whether they should or not is a separate question.

I do photography, and I like to keep the original RAW photos from the camera. So, this sort of thing would be perfect for me. I don’t really need fast write access, since I just want to back the photos up and it’s not time sensitive.