wether viruses qualify as “alive” was once the subject of contentious debate. they satisfy some (genes, evolution, replication) but not other (cells, metabolism, homeostasis) qualities of life the general consensus now is that they exist outside the binary, at the “edge of life” i think this is a pretty good analogue for the question of whether LLMs are conscious

they are neither conscious nor unconscious but a secret third thing (at the edge of consciousness)

whether*

typo acknowledgment :(

@paraschopra brother this is the pinned post of your lab…

@paraschopra bro really switched up on the what is consciousness question in the past 2 months

@controscience and i'm certainly not interested in debating cowan's gross misrepresentations