Likely a prefrontal cortex, the administrative center of the brain and generally host to human consciousness. As well as a dedicated memory system with learning plasticity.
Humans have systems that mirror llms but llms are missing a few key components to be precise replicas of human brains, mostly because it’s computationally expensive to consider and the goal is different.
Some specific things the brain has that llms don’t directly account for are different neurochemicals (favoring a single floating value per neuron), synaptogenesis, neurogenesis, synapse fire travel duration and myelin, neural pruning, potassium and sodium channels, downstream effects, etc. We use math and gradient descent to somewhat mirror the brain’s hebbian learning but do not perform precisely the same operations using the same systems.
In my opinion having a dedicated module for consciousness would bridge the gap, possibly while accounting for some of the missing characteristics. Consciousness is not an indescribable mystery, we have performed tons of experiments and received a whole lot of information on the topic.
As it stands llms are largely reasonable approximations of the language center of the brain but little more. It may honestly not take much to get what we consider consciousness humming in a system that includes an llm as a component.
a prefrontal cortex, the administrative center of the brain and generally host to human consciousness.
That’s an interesting take. The prefrontal cortex in humans is proportionately larger than in other mammals. Is it implied that animals are not conscious on account of this difference?
If so, what about people who never develop an identifiable prefrontal cortex? I guess, we could assume that a sufficient cortex is still there, though not identifiable. But what about people who suffer extensive damage to that part of the brain. Can one lose consciousness without, as it were, losing consciousness (ie becoming comatose in some way)?
a dedicated module for consciousness would bridge the gap
What functions would such a module need to perform? What tests would verify that the module works correctly and actually provides consciousness to the system?
How do you think god comes into the equation? What do you think about split brain syndrome in which people demonstrate having multiple consciousnesses? If consciousness is based on a metaphysical property why can it be altered with chemicals and drugs? What do you think happens during a lobotomy?
I get that evidence based thinking is generally not compatible with religious postulates, but just throwing up your hands and saying consciousness comes from the gods is an incredibly weak position to hold.
I agree, there are two consistent points of view with regards to conciousness IMO: either it is an emergent property of systems regardless of what they are made of, so there is no reasons machines couldnt be concious even if none now are; or that conciousness is a supernatural quantity that isnt a property of mater and energy that can be studied by science.
I dissagree with the later but it is far more consistent than people who claim to be materialist but insist there is something magicial about the matter in brains that can not be replicated by other forms of matter.
Consciousness is an emergent property, generally self awareness and singularity are key defining features.
There is no secret sauce to llms that would make them any more conscious than Wikipedia.
What would such a secret sauce look like? Like, what is it in humans, for example?
Likely a prefrontal cortex, the administrative center of the brain and generally host to human consciousness. As well as a dedicated memory system with learning plasticity.
Humans have systems that mirror llms but llms are missing a few key components to be precise replicas of human brains, mostly because it’s computationally expensive to consider and the goal is different.
Some specific things the brain has that llms don’t directly account for are different neurochemicals (favoring a single floating value per neuron), synaptogenesis, neurogenesis, synapse fire travel duration and myelin, neural pruning, potassium and sodium channels, downstream effects, etc. We use math and gradient descent to somewhat mirror the brain’s hebbian learning but do not perform precisely the same operations using the same systems.
In my opinion having a dedicated module for consciousness would bridge the gap, possibly while accounting for some of the missing characteristics. Consciousness is not an indescribable mystery, we have performed tons of experiments and received a whole lot of information on the topic.
As it stands llms are largely reasonable approximations of the language center of the brain but little more. It may honestly not take much to get what we consider consciousness humming in a system that includes an llm as a component.
That’s an interesting take. The prefrontal cortex in humans is proportionately larger than in other mammals. Is it implied that animals are not conscious on account of this difference?
If so, what about people who never develop an identifiable prefrontal cortex? I guess, we could assume that a sufficient cortex is still there, though not identifiable. But what about people who suffer extensive damage to that part of the brain. Can one lose consciousness without, as it were, losing consciousness (ie becoming comatose in some way)?
What functions would such a module need to perform? What tests would verify that the module works correctly and actually provides consciousness to the system?
Consciousness comes from the soul, and souls are given to us by the gods. That’s why AI isn’t conscious.
How do you think god comes into the equation? What do you think about split brain syndrome in which people demonstrate having multiple consciousnesses? If consciousness is based on a metaphysical property why can it be altered with chemicals and drugs? What do you think happens during a lobotomy?
I get that evidence based thinking is generally not compatible with religious postulates, but just throwing up your hands and saying consciousness comes from the gods is an incredibly weak position to hold.
I respect the people who say machines have consciousness, because at least they’re consistent. But you’re just like me, and won’t admit it.
I agree, there are two consistent points of view with regards to conciousness IMO: either it is an emergent property of systems regardless of what they are made of, so there is no reasons machines couldnt be concious even if none now are; or that conciousness is a supernatural quantity that isnt a property of mater and energy that can be studied by science.
I dissagree with the later but it is far more consistent than people who claim to be materialist but insist there is something magicial about the matter in brains that can not be replicated by other forms of matter.