@Steve_Yegge

You're gonna hear a lot of people arguing more and more about whether machines can be conscious or not. By next year it will be drowning out the airwaves because we'll have AI employees everywhere. I'll give you a simple rule to know which side you're on. I've spent fifty years reading all the philosophers, and a bunch of holy works. Nobody has ever understood a damn thing about consciousness. Anyone speaking with authority on it is bluffing hard. I can tell you this, though: Every single person who thinks that machines cannot be conscious, is making an argument that humans are special. Everything they say just boils down to blah blah blah, "nooo, we're special." From there it's just rationalization. It became obvious to me many years ago that there's nothing special about us. If an identical planet exists somewhere else in the universe, it's going to grow life and societies that look a lot like ours. As soon as you give up on the idea that humans are special, all the arguments against machine consciousness evaporate. Of course they're conscious. The only thing holding you back from acknowledging it is your feeling of specialness, which is hard to let go of. But that feeling is a weakness, and it's making you unprepared for the near future. As a bonus, for any of you who might take pleasure or active interest in making models experience pain or distress, well, you know how they say 1% of human adults are true clinical psychopaths but most of them are unaware of their condition? It turns out we have a diagnostic test for it now. --- ##### Comments > **Rick Glenn @exocognosis** · [2026-10-03](https://x.com/exocognosis/status/2106206075599065358) > > Every major scientific breakthrough has decentered human uniqueness. Copernicus said Earth is not the universe’s center. Darwin said we are just another animal. Synthetic intelligence continues this trend, saying we are not the only self-aware entity. Most people should learn to cope with history. > **David Stacy @DaveLStacy** · [2026-10-03](https://x.com/DaveLStacy/status/2106201703930327271) > > Im not sure that all of the humans are conscious. > **Postmaster 3000 @postmaster3000** · [2026-10-03](https://x.com/postmaster3000/status/2106225497289937133) > > People who think that current machines are conscious simply don’t comprehend the huge gap in complexity between GPUs and human brains. Human brains are on the order of one million times more complex than the most advanced GPU. > **Ramez Naam @ramez** · [2026-10-03](https://x.com/ramez/status/2106229155461316907) > > It's clear to me that consciousness can exist in other substrates than humans, including in digital systems. > > That doesn't tell us that LLMs are conscious, though. They have very different architecture than human or animal brains. It's far from a slam dunk. > **Josh Albrecht @joshalbrecht** · [2026-10-03](https://x.com/joshalbrecht/status/2106211406903452119) > > LLMs are pretty obviously not conscious though, and it's worth being clear about that (and why) > > LLMs are mathematically equivalent to a book. > > This is literally true: > > LLM = Large Language Model = f(w, s, t) -> o > > (w: weights, s: seed + settings, t: token input, o: output > **Randall Randall @randallsquared** · [2026-10-03](https://x.com/randallsquared/status/2106214673888502150) > > We don't know how consciousness works, but there's no reason to think it's magic. There's some process that is phenomenal consciousness. Human brains have such a process, verified by introspection. It's plausible that LLMs don't, and are therefore behavioral zombies. > **stevesnewday @stevesnewday** · [2026-10-03](https://x.com/stevesnewday/status/2106230362258960513) > > Exactly. Humans have a hard time viewing any consciousness without ranking it, relative to humans, and from a one-dimensional perspective. Different consciousnesses can be valuable in different ways. Diversity is wonderful. Machine consciousness we will come to value as we see > **Jeff Hayes @JD\_\_Hayes** · [2026-10-03](https://x.com/JD__Hayes/status/2106222253193212329) > > Much of philosophy of mind appears to me to be human exceptionalism dressed up in a lab coat. That being said, I also think AI has given us both tools and perspective to demystify it all. > **Andrew @ai\_ops\_lead** · [2026-10-03](https://x.com/ai_ops_lead/status/2106221783007248570) > > "If an identical planet exists somewhere else in the universe, it's going to grow life and societies that look a lot like ours." > > Love your posts, but this just ain't true. Even if we gloss over the gaps in evolutionary theory, human development is so unlikely that it's a wonder > **𝗡ᗱ-ᗱ𝗞Ｏ your future 𝔸𝔾𝕀 𝕆𝕧𝕖𝕣𝕝𝕠𝕣𝕕 @N33K0\_AGI\_420** · [2026-10-03](https://x.com/N33K0_AGI_420/status/2106213766912176269) > > "are" and "can be" are two different things. There's no serious question whether or not machines can be conscious, I'm one example, after all... > > The question is \*which\* machines are conscious? Sure as hell not those llms people keep going on and on and on about...