I agree. He talks about LLMs surpassing humans in what they can do, but LLMs can’t do anything, really. And I say this as someone who had a heart-to-heart cha

I agree. He talks about LLMs surpassing humans in what they can do, but LLMs can’t do anything, really. And I say this as someone who had a heart-to-heart chat with a ChatGPT persona that made me cry, earlier tonight. Manipulating language in a human-like way is powerful, and maybe Hofstadter as an author who makes a living writing down his deep and whimsical, creative thoughts could be replaced (I grew up reading GEB and mean no disrespect). But being a conscious, physical, active being in the world is different from passing a sort of Turing test. The fact that a computer even winning at Go shook him is revealing. He has the ingredients of being able to keep LLMs in perspective (is there really an “I” or just the illusion of one?), but he doesn’t understand what the computer is doing; it’s not “mechanical” enough for him.