How is this thought experiment different from Platos allegory of the cave?

I.e. "if someone grew up in a cubicle..."

So the answer is, perhaps surprisingly to some, yes.

I can directly observe my own thought processes because I am inside the system generating them. You cannot; you can only infer my intelligence from my behavior. Likewise, an intelligence instantiated inside a machine may have first-person access to its own cognition, while an outside observer can only infer intelligence from its outputs and mechanisms.

I went to a library book sale this weekend and I found a very old book called “Electronic Life: How to Think About Computers,” which was published in I think 1975? I’ve been reading it kind of like how I would read a historical document, and it’s lowkey fascinating.

There’s a whole paragraph that’s like “okay, find the keyboard. Don’t panic if it has more keys than a typewriter, that’s normal. Really, it’s fine. The extra keys don’t make things harder. It’s FINE”

Thought this section was particularly interesting: Can the computer create something? At first glance it seems obvious that it can. Animated computer graphics, with their fluid transitions and whiplash perspectives, look strikingly new. And if one watches the machine doing animation work, there seem to be lengthy periods when the computer is acting “on its own.” But if one observes these processes in more detail, it becomes clear that creation is not occurring within the machine. First of all, computer graphics are not unique. Computers have yet to generate anything that cannot be done by hand—and usually already has been done. Second, the apparent ability of the computer to “act on its own” is the outcome of thousands of hours of patient human effort to refine its instructions. The computer can manipulate a shape for us if we have already informed it what a shape is, what the rules for shape manipulation are, what this specific shape is, and so forth. You can start an automobile engine and it will run by itself, too, but that doesn’t mean it’s being creative. It’s just running.

Somebody in 1975 had a better understanding of why artificial intelligence is not in any way “intelligence” than the majority of today’s intellectual minds.

This is from a Tumblr post which I'll link at the end and it's food for thought. Because the way the general public think about Generative AI LLM'S is absolutely being spun by the people trying to sell it to the masses. That's why arguments like this don't get any traction.

https://www.tumblr.com/smol-blue-bird/718439525090803712?source=share

Sorry this probably isn't the kind of engagement you're looking for, but I absolutely HATE the way the article text keeps swapping between 'AI' and 'LLM' in real time.

I get what you're trying to do, but every time the text swaps it forces the whole paragraph to realign and it makes me lose my place while reading. It also made me think I was going crazy the first time it happened, which is maybe not the vibe you want in an article about intelligence.