Weird thoughts about LLMs, part 1

[feotakahari]

In Dragon Age: Inquisition, you can get into an argument about whether other-dimensional spirits qualify as “people.” One of your possible arguments is that spirits, in the Dragon Age cosmology, are fundamentally reflections. They mimic the emotions they see, and they can’t feel anything a human hasn’t felt first.

The other guy argues that humans also impact and change each other. If this argument changes your mind, does that mean you’re not a person because you reflected him?

LLMs are reflections. You show one a bunch of fantasy novels, and it reproduces the general style of fantasy novels. Show it a bunch of 4chan posts, and it reproduces 4chan posts. So in a way, that argument about spirits is also an argument about LLMs.