Let's consider the two quotes highlighted in the article: > “No, I don’t think that Sydney is sentient, but for reasons that are hard to explain, I feel like I

Let's consider the two quotes highlighted in the article: > “No, I don’t think that Sydney is sentient, but for reasons that are hard to explain, I feel like I have crossed the Rubicon,” wrote Ben Thompson in his Stratechery newsletter. > “In the light of day, I know that Sydney is not sentient [but] for a few hours Tuesday night, I felt a strange new emotion — a foreboding feeling that AI had crossed a threshold, and that the world would never be the same,” wrote Kevin Roose for The New York Times. It goes on to describe how authors are anthropomorphizing chatbots, and talking about how the experience of chatting with these bots affects them. None of that seems wrong or misguided in any way. It's a commentary on humanity and society, and about their own emotional reactions. As the article even admits, they make it clear that they don't think the bots are sentient. They simply think that they have reached a point where they will significantly influence humanity and society (they have "crossed the Rubicon"). And I think that's a completely fair analysis. These bots are absolutely human-like enough, useful enough, powerful enough and potentially dangerous enough, that thinking they will change things is completely reasonable. The quoted authors are directly stating that there is nothing sentient about these chatbots. They are simply commenting on their impact on the world. So it is a bit surreal to see the article go on to claim that they "tilt us dangerously toward a false equivalence of software and sentience". (I also believe that the author of this article is too confident in their ability to determine with such certainty whether something is "sentient" or not. But that's neither here nor there.)