I usually disagree with you about everything but I think you have a valid point here. This was an issue I studied very closely when I was in university, and you're right, no one has the slightest clue how consciousness works. Saying "oh ChatGTP is just a statistical machine so it can't be conscious" is like saying "oh the human brain is just a bunch of neural firings so it can't produce consciousness". In both cases, consciousness is not an obvious end result, but here we are.
That said, personally I don't think ChatGTP is conscious, but it's wrong for people to act like it being a philosophical zombie is obvious; the possibility of it being conscious is actually compatible with most nonreligious people's belief systems already. Unfortunately the anti-AI hate on Lemmy won't allow people to see the nuance on this discussion and they will interperet this as me somehow defending AI slop, which I am in no way trying to do.


