Artificial-intelligence systems such as large language models (LLMs) can exhibit behaviour that seems strikingly intelligent. This has led many people, including some experts, to wonder whether these systems could have some form of consciousness — the capacity for subjective experience. However, we think that existing AI systems are not conscious, and that, along current trajectories of development, they are not likely to become conscious. Greater clarity about whether AI could become consciousness will be crucial as society grapples with the challenges posed by this increasingly powerful technology.
Consciousness is a feedback loop, of a sort that current LLMs do not have. However, there’s nothing preventing someone from writing different software that does have that sort of feedback loop. Doing this would be a bad idea, but someone will probably eventually do it if they haven’t already.
I thought the chain-of-thought essentially qualifies; it responds to its own text for awhile before responding to you?