To my understanding, an LLM -- and similar models -- have a Markov chain equivalent. There is an old argument from philosophy that any mechanical interpretatio

To my understanding, an LLM -- and similar models -- have a Markov chain equivalent. There is an old argument from philosophy that any mechanical interpretation of mind has no need for consciousness. Or conversely, that consciousness is not needed explain any mechanistic aspect of mind. Yet, consciousness -- sentience -- is our primary differentiator as humans. From my perspective, we are making strides in processing natural language. We have made the startling discovery that language encodes a lot about thought patterns of the humans producing the text, and we now have machines which can effectively learn those patterns. Yet, sentience remains no less a mystery.