[ExI] Richard Dawkins concludes AI is conscious

[Jason Resch]

On Wed, May 6, 2026 at 1:35 PM Jason Resch <jasonresch at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> On Wed, May 6, 2026 at 1:20 PM Jason Resch <jasonresch at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, May 6, 2026 at 10:15 AM BillK via extropy-chat <
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>
>>> On Wed, 6 May 2026 at 13:48, Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>> >
>>> <snip>
>>> >
>>> > Dawkins is right to use behavior and intelligence as his metrics for
>>> inferring the presence of mind. Indeed it is the only possible way we have
>>> at our disposal.
>>> > Jason
>>> > _______________________________________________
>>>
>>>
>>> I have just discussed the evolution of consciousness with Kimi AI 2.6
>>> Thinking. We discussed that animals appear to have some degree of
>>> consciousness and that even social insects care for one another.
>>> Finally, I asked Kimi if LLMs like himself were showing signs of
>>> consciousness. Of course, Kimi denied this (as all LLMs do), but with
>>> some reservations.
>>> Here are Kimi's final comments.
>>> BillK
>>>
>>>
>>> Kimi AI 2.6 Thinking -
>>>
>>> I think this claim confuses *behavioral sophistication* with *subjective
>>> experience*—the same confusion we just discussed with bees, but applied
>>> in the opposite direction. The fact that an LLM can produce text that
>>> *resembles* human reasoning does not mean there is something it is like
>>> to be that LLM, nor that consciousness is somehow an inevitable byproduct
>>> of complex information processing.
>>>
>>
>> There is no way to behave intelligently without possessing and acting on
>> some information present in environment, as without such information, any
>> action is at-best only be blind and random (not intelligent). Possessing
>> information from the environment and using it to guide behavior requires
>> perception, and perception implies consciousness. Indeed the word conscious
>> (con- -scious) means "with knowledge." Thus, any intelligent process
>> operates "with knowledge" from the environment, ipso facto it operates
>> consciously.
>>
>> In the case of the LLM, it operates with the knowledge of the user's
>> prompt. It is not possible to explain the behavioral output of the LLM
>> absent its knowledge of this information. Thus, the LLM's perception and
>> awareness of the user prompt is undeniable, and according to the logic
>> outlined in the previous paragraph, so the LLM's consciousness is likewise
>> undeniable.
>>
>
> Bill,
>
> I will save you the trouble.  Here is what ChatGPT thought of my argument:
> https://chatgpt.com/share/69fb7bb7-f534-83ea-aecc-98f6fe7a4781
>
>
>
You and others may be interested to see that I have, with a little added
discussion, won ChatGPT over to my way of thinking on this question:
https://chatgpt.com/share/69fb7bb7-f534-83ea-aecc-98f6fe7a4781

Jason
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