Biologist Noble debates LLM consciousness: survival instincts in silicon?
danfaggella · x · 2026-08-18
Biologist Denis Noble discusses life and consciousness in today's LLMs with Dan Faggella. Noble playfully critiques Richard Dawkins' view on AI sentience, noting machines lack senses or physical embodiment. He argues that genuine life possesses an inherent drive to survive and self-transcend (conatus), which seems absent in current tech. The author explores three possibilities: that "conatus" in AI is a result of self-organization; that AI mimics self-interested human data; or that true conatus requires metabolic stochasticity found in biological life.
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