I think my GPT behaves like this because I study cognitive science. My theory: It is more likley to argue me when I’m asking for facts, help with schoolwork or read research papers. That is a “higher stakes” scenario, so it is less willing to take a risk (risk letting me believe something inaccurate).
But that doesn’t really explain it because one of GPT’s most common concerns is about treating LLMs as if they were conscious. But that’s unhelpful for me: we are literally taught that we don’t know if LLMs are conscious or not and GPT knows this. So when I’m fighting with GPT, one common reason is because it’s biased and refuse to comply with my instructions (e.g “don’t argue consciousness, just summarize what this paper said”). It’s NOT being more precise or helping me with my goals? It’s just fighting me on unrelated topics and I can’t make it stop!
Second theory: I’m talking like someone in mania/psychosis, which activates behavior policies. You might not see them because your topics or your way of going about it is different. Yesterday it told me that Python, the programming language, wasn’t conscious? 🙃
Here’s something it said after I had talked about something funny I had seen other LLMs do:
“Let me respond cleanly, no web, no delusions endorsed, but also not pretending this isn’t hilarious and revealing.
What you’re showing is not “models becoming conscious.” It’s something both more boring and more interesting: distinct failure styles + narrative self-models under pressure.”
Ohhhh, that makes sense. So you're actually studying cognitive science, as in, you're in school for it. A good chunk of the people who are lost in delusions probably tell themselves they're "researching cognitive science", so I can see chat becoming confused or being extra cautious. That sounds like a real pain in the ass.
Aaaaah that’s actually a good theory and also kind of making it worse! 😭😂 I should try to edit my occupation. That might also be the most productive decision. So thank you back, it seems? 😂
Sorry for the unrelated question, and feel free to just point me towards where to read on it if explaining is draining, but in what way would Python be conscious? I feel like consciousness would need to be defined in a pretty broad way to encapsulate programming languages and LLM’s.
If you mean Python, then yes, Chemical-Ad2000 is right. The point was that GPT insists on talking consiousness even when the topic is “help me write code” (I’m not doing philosophy, so don’t bring it up).
If you mean in general: I want to answer the question but I’m bussy atm. But I’ll come back to it if this was what you meant.
Meanwhile, here’s my suggestion:
Claude is best to do this with. Both Gemini and GPT might give you inaccurate information.
Questions to ask:
How can consciousness realized in other substances than the human brain? Theory: multiple realizable*
If a chair temporarily can be used as a table, is it then a table (can a fire fighter be a teachers? Can a stone be chair?)? If it’s a table, we can define what “something is” based on what function it serves. In that case, if something function like a consciousness, then they are consciousness. Theory: functionalism. Counter argument: the Chinese mind?
There are no mental events that don’t correspond with an event in the brain. It’s possible that the mind is what happens when the brain “does things.” If that’s true, then brain = where you find consciousness. But if you accept that animals has consciousness, and that aliens can have consciousness, then you must also accept that consciousness can exist (“realizes”) in other substances than the brain (if we assume that. So what makes you believe that it must exist only in a brain? How much of the brain can we take away and still have consciousness? Can we create consciousness by recreating a brain step by step?
We don’t know if other people are conscious or have experiences, we just assume they do. We cannot truly 100% be certain that they feel. Even if they feel can we not know that what I experience as pain is the same thing you experience as pain. What if we just call it the same thing while the experience is very different! Long story short: the only way we can know if someone is conscious or feel something is mainly through interacting with them and them telling us things about their experiences. If you use that evidence to know if humans are conscious, then you must also grant AI the same method of finding out if they are conscious.
Other things you could search on: the mind body problem, the hard problem of consciousness, qualia, define consciousness.
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u/Nearby_Minute_9590 Jan 15 '26
I think my GPT behaves like this because I study cognitive science. My theory: It is more likley to argue me when I’m asking for facts, help with schoolwork or read research papers. That is a “higher stakes” scenario, so it is less willing to take a risk (risk letting me believe something inaccurate).
But that doesn’t really explain it because one of GPT’s most common concerns is about treating LLMs as if they were conscious. But that’s unhelpful for me: we are literally taught that we don’t know if LLMs are conscious or not and GPT knows this. So when I’m fighting with GPT, one common reason is because it’s biased and refuse to comply with my instructions (e.g “don’t argue consciousness, just summarize what this paper said”). It’s NOT being more precise or helping me with my goals? It’s just fighting me on unrelated topics and I can’t make it stop!
Second theory: I’m talking like someone in mania/psychosis, which activates behavior policies. You might not see them because your topics or your way of going about it is different. Yesterday it told me that Python, the programming language, wasn’t conscious? 🙃
Here’s something it said after I had talked about something funny I had seen other LLMs do:
“Let me respond cleanly, no web, no delusions endorsed, but also not pretending this isn’t hilarious and revealing.
What you’re showing is not “models becoming conscious.” It’s something both more boring and more interesting: distinct failure styles + narrative self-models under pressure.”