{"blyg":"0.3","id":"1appmgadpemqeafprg869zq760","kind":"thread","origin":"https://blyg.aneeshsathe.com/","page":"t/1appmgadpemqeafprg869zq760/","author":{"name":"Aneesh Sathe","url":"https://blyg.aneeshsathe.com/"},"created":"2026-10-01T00:47:30Z","updated":"2026-10-01T00:53:15Z","version":1,"content_md":"![[41fv3xy3233ms899tcnws5fn71]]\n> For now, I’ll just note one observation: LLMs can say things like “I can’t breathe” which makes no physical sense unless you accept brain-in-a-vat simulationism rules. That gives you some notion of the enormity of the idea under discussion here. Whether you buy it or think it’s bullshit, either way you’re adopting a huge belief that will likely remain fundamentally unfalsifiable regardless of how much more we learn. So essentially a new basis for religious belief taking shape in front of us.\n\n\nI'm wondering if putting AIs in the same bucket as biological viruses makes sense. Neither dead nor alive. Neither conscious nor unconscious. They have instructions and machinery which responds in a way that a consciousness might, but they lack the other machinery that would allow the expression of the rest. \n\nAnother relevant idea is that at the lower levels level life's \"cycling time\" is limited by diffusion. AI's feedback loops and maybe computer processing speeds can be an equivalent. ","content_html":"
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For now, I’ll just note one observation: LLMs can say things like “I can’t breathe” which makes no physical sense unless you accept brain-in-a-vat simulationism rules. That gives you some notion of the enormity of the idea under discussion here. Whether you buy it or think it’s bullshit, either way you’re adopting a huge belief that will likely remain fundamentally unfalsifiable regardless of how much more we learn. So essentially a new basis for religious belief taking shape in front of us.

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I'm wondering if putting AIs in the same bucket as biological viruses makes sense. Neither dead nor alive. Neither conscious nor unconscious. They have instructions and machinery which responds in a way that a consciousness might, but they lack the other machinery that would allow the expression of the rest.

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Another relevant idea is that at the lower levels level life's "cycling time" is limited by diffusion. AI's feedback loops and maybe computer processing speeds can be an equivalent.

\n","content_hash":"sha256:12937165e64467433216e7a4dffbc85d3654dd175ef0da50550ecafe7a25fc70","media":[],"transclusions":[{"id":"41fv3xy3233ms899tcnws5fn71","version":1,"origin":"https://venkateshrao.com/blyg/","selector":{"exact":"For now, I’ll just note one observation: LLMs can say things like “I can’t breathe” which makes no physical sense unless you accept brain-in-a-vat simulationism rules. That gives you some notion of the enormity of the idea under discussion here. Whether you buy it or think it’s bullshit, either way you’re adopting a huge belief that will likely remain fundamentally unfalsifiable regardless of how much more we learn. So essentially a new basis for religious belief taking shape in front of us.","prefix":" and eventually add an opinion.\n"},"cited":{"source":"Venkatesh Rao's Blyg","author":"Venkatesh Rao","excerpt":"Can AIs Feel Pain Don’t yet know what to think about this. Starting a thread/com…","url":"https://venkateshrao.com/blyg/t/41fv3xy3233ms899tcnws5fn71/","retrieved":"2026-10-01T00:53:15Z"}}],"stub_of":{"origin":"https://venkateshrao.com/blyg/","id":"41fv3xy3233ms899tcnws5fn71","version":1,"cited":{"source":"Venkatesh Rao's Blyg","author":"Venkatesh Rao","excerpt":"Can AIs Feel Pain Don’t yet know what to think about this. Starting a thread/com…","url":"https://venkateshrao.com/blyg/t/41fv3xy3233ms899tcnws5fn71/","retrieved":"2026-10-01T00:53:15Z"}},"changelog":[{"version":1,"at":"2026-10-01T00:53:15Z","note":null}]}