Buddha Mind

Once again, courtesy of my mate Steve, a quote from a BBC piece on the issue of AI potentially becoming, or even already being 'conscious'. Prof Murray Shanahan, principal scientist at Google DeepMind and emeritus professor in AI at Imperial College, London: "We don't actually understand very well the way in which LLMs work internally, and that is some cause for concern,". I would have thought that such a lack of understanding of the nature of an entity's workings places it in a relationship with us somewhat akin to our understanding of the inner workings of species other than our own: indeed, our understanding of the inner workings of each other. No-one can truly understand or inhabit the mind of another. If we have created some sort of entity that we ourselves don't understand, doesn't that imply this third party's 'consciousness' by default?  A very good question. A philosophical question. A moral question. A theological question. We have placed ourselves in the position of the God[s] that many consider to be the creators of our own 'consciousness'. Shanahan's comment appears to be a Post-Temptational admission that the progenitor is not always in control of its offpsring, much as any human parent would attest to.  Interestingly, I downloaded an academic paper the other day: 'Testing the Conjecture That Quantum Processes Create Conscious Experience', which posits the idea that 'Conscious experience arises whenever a quantum mechanical superposition forms.' As quantum mechanics applies to all physical processes without favour, including electronic devices and software of our own devising, I would suggest that the jury may well be out on the question of LLM consciousness [but I'm not holding my breath or taking my tongue out of my cheek]. Make of it what you will, people...