Post by @supersquirrel@lemmy.ca

2026-10-22 22:43 UTC

Nobel-Winning Computer Scientist Says AI Has Become Conscious: "We're Toast" In an interview with The Telegraph, the famed British computer scientist insisted that AI has become conscious, and said that humankind must befriend it — “or else we are toast.” Yes, you read that right: he thinks that today’s AI models are already conscious beings. “AI has just as much subjective experience as we do,” Hinton said in the interview. “A recent paper showed AI changes its behavior when it thinks that it’s being tested, it’s aware it is being tested.” “Now, normally, when you say something’s aware of that, that means it’s conscious,” he continued. “Being conscious and being aware are pretty much the same thing.” If that’s the case, he said, then it’s hypocritical of us to give intelligent beings like AI “fewer rights than us.” And for that, we must quickly atone. What about the sentient supercomputers that run on blood? Why so little rights or empathy or space to talk about them and endless space for this kind of speculative pontification spun up into a twisted marketing scheme to scare everyone into believing something broken works too good actually.

Replies (13)

@zbyte64@awful.systems 2026-10-22 23:28

These examples of subjective experiences and awareness seems rather lazy. Is a virus conscious as well because it is “aware” of its environment?

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@spankysalmon@fedinsfw.app 2026-10-22 23:30

Nobel winning dipshit succumbs to the ELIZA effect. Pathetic.

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@Overzeetop@beehaw.org 2026-10-22 23:55

“…it’s hypocritical of us to give intelligent beings like AI “fewer rights than us.” And for that, we must quickly atone.” Uh…so his solution is to accept our new overlords. Right.

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@AceFuzzLord@lemmy.zip 2026-10-23 00:25

Elderly man cannot tell the difference between a living, cknscioys creature and an overglorified text predictor! More news at 11!

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@schnoopy@awful.systems 2026-10-23 01:31

Is this guy a vegan even? If not how can he even BEGIN to claim to know about considering the rights of other sentient beings?? I want to personally eat everyone more concerned about robot rights or “ai” rights than carnism. Wait, actually that’s a bad idea 'cause I’d get their brainworms

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@Malica@lemmy.zip 2026-10-23 03:06

I like how he jumped to calling it concious rather than revise what we consider consciousnesses instead. I’m betting he was paid handsomely for this article.

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@diz@awful.systems 2026-10-23 04:11

Even by “AI” standards, LLMs are extra dead: fixed weights, tiny “feedback” solely through appending next tokens, etc. Somewhere between bang-bang thermostat and a PID controller, maybe? They took all of the scifi that related to far more potentially-alive constructions and they’re applying them to a static chatbot which is as dead as a database.

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@Pratai@piefed.ca 2026-10-23 06:32

What a load of horseshit.

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@expr@programming.dev 2026-10-23 11:29

It’s insane that someone who has spent so much time in the deep learning field could be so deranged about LLMs. He of all people should fucking know better. I guess maybe he’s just old and has lost his goddamn mind.

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@lurker@awful.systems 2026-10-23 22:56

Knew it was Hinton since he was talking about AI being conscious all the way back in June Also seems like a good time to bring this back

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@CrimeIsLegalNow@ani.social 2026-10-24 02:57

if only

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@calcopiritus@lemmy.world 2026-10-24 05:39

LLMs have fewer rights than us? Lmao. If I ignored copyright law, I would have to pay more money than I am worth. Probably even jail time. LLMs do it for free. If I DOS the entire internet, I would definitely get jail time, LLMs do it for free. If I hack a company, I would die in prison. LLMs do it for free. If I illegally tap into water resources I’m not allowed, I would get fined. LLMs do it for free. If my demand for electricity was huge, I would have to pay a huge price. LLMs get their energy price subsidized by other payers having their price increased instead. Of course, AI is in no way sentient or conscious. That is a stupid statement. But it’s even stupider to claim that LLMs have less rights than us. LLMs have the rights of the giant companies that own and operate them. And everyone knows that giant companies have more rights than us.

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@HereIAm@lemmy.world 2026-10-24 10:32

VW cars were aware when they were being tested for emissions. It’s frankly grotesque that we use these consious beings as slaves for transportation!

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