the reason people think LLMs are conscious is because they use natural language. we evolved to understand speech and to specifically understand speech as representative of the internal world of the speaker. the only creatures we spoke to were conscious. we evolved specifically to have greater empathy and kinship via conversation - the main way people come to understand each other and feel closer is still just talking.
all that has happened to dorkins is he has fallen into an evolutionary trap. the exact same trap that those tiktokers who believe their dog can talk to them by jumping on buttons have fallen into. because the buttons create a simulacrum of language, however crude, the listening brain itself constructs a simulacrum of the internal world of the perceived speaker. Because that is what it already evolved to do with the only available speakers in its evolutionary history!!!!!!
this seems like a confused post on a lot of levels - the Clever Hans effect, where animals are capable of reacting to unconscious cues that trick people into thinking they have command of language, is a very different situation from consciousness debates in LLMs. for one, we tend to think of animals as conscious, and two, LLMs have a great deal more facility with language than any of the animals triggering the Clever Hans effect.
LLMs are not passively reflecting or reacting to things they're presented with - they are capable of things like making novel mathematical discoveries. by most definitions for most of history, they are "intelligent" and capable of "thinking". the question of how this could be possible without consciousness is what is consuming Dawkins, and contrary to whatever people seem to be reacting to, he does not actually come down hard in favor of LLM consciousness and indeed suggests alternative explanations.
