[Linkpost] “LLMs might already be conscious” by MichaelDickens

Among people who have thought about LLM consciousness, a common belief is something like

LLMs might be conscious soon, but they aren't yet.

How sure are we that they aren't conscious already?

I made a quick list of arguments for/against LLM consciousness, and it seems to me that high confidence in non-consciousness is not justified. I don't feel comfortable assigning less than a 10% chance to LLM consciousness, and I believe a 1% chance is unreasonably confident. But I am interested in hearing arguments I may have missed.

For context, I lean toward the computational theory of consciousness, but I also think it's reasonable to have high uncertainty about which theory of consciousness is correct.

Behavioral evidence

• Pro: LLMs have passed the Turing test. If you have a black box containing either a human or an LLM, and [...]

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Outline:

(00:56) Behavioral evidence

(02:23) Architectural evidence

(03:06) Other evidence

(03:19) My synthesis of the evidence

(04:12) What will change with future AIs?

(04:33) On LLM welfare

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First published:

July 5th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/WrLMQjLDbT8nnowGB/untitled-draft-suvg

Linkpost URL:
https://mdickens.me/2025/07/05/LLMs_might_already_be_conscious/

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.