> What would even be sentient? The numbers in that order? The neural net meta-data? The bits in the computer? What in would even be sentient in the human brain

> What would even be sentient? The numbers in that order? The neural net meta-data? The bits in the computer? What in would even be sentient in the human brain? The molecules in that configuration? The neurons? Maybe large groups of neurons? Computation isn’t just abstract pieces of software executing off in some aether. It’s done through physical processes, taking place on real, physical pieces of hardware that exist in the same universe that our brains do. Most would say the atoms in your brain aren’t sentient, but you are sentient. So the best answer is that no, the bits and numbers in the computer aren’t sentient, the system as a whole is the thing you would call sentient. I’m not trying to die on the hill that neural nets are sentient, because I think at this stage they are not. But I don’t think this common framing of it is the nail in the coffin people think it is.