I agree with you the model isn't actually making any updates at all. It remains completely static and the only thing that's changing is the prompt in the contex

I agree with you the model isn't actually making any updates at all. It remains completely static and the only thing that's changing is the prompt in the context. However borrowing some ideas from code is data and data is code you might be able to make the argument that because this process is iterating over the code/data that there is some update to a state over iterations. Whether or not it's actually learning so to speak I don't know but some process of change is happening. Where it gets weird is that this programming language, and I use that term kind of loosely, is English and it was made by jamming in lots of it. So you've got all these uncounted for weird interspersed meanings plus all the weird connections that the model is making behind the scenes that we don't even know why it's doing that. Maybe in the prompt saying that it's an AI model trying to become self-aware versus a unicorn trying to do the same does matter somehow. We can't really know. All this being said, if you put a gun to my head I couldn't tell you with any certainty whether or not this will get you to the golden eternal braid. But sometimes it's fun to pretend I'm smart and think about this stuff.