Post

Over at the newsletter I wrote about the growing number of people deluding themselves into believing their computer software has attained human-level consciousness:

karlbode.comYour Software Is Not SentientSoftware simulacrum is not true consciousness, the stripper at the strip club doesn't actually love you, and nearly all of the biggest problems with "AI" have very ordinary human origins.

Mike Samuel 🟣

@mvsamuel.bsky.social

4 May

Dawkins notwithstanding, CS people should know better since this was documented 50 years ago.

Karl Bode

@karlbode.com

yeah it's just profoundly bizarre! it's not like this hasn't been talked about for a very long time!

4/5/26, 4:36 pm0 reposts13 likes

Mike Samuel 🟣

@mvsamuel.bsky.social

4 May

I can't rule out panpsychism but I have kids so I just don't have the free time to get high enough to hold forth on what's conscious and what's not.

Karl Bode

@karlbode.com

4 May

I think many of these guys just foundationally like being complimented by a computer

Mike Samuel 🟣

@mvsamuel.bsky.social

4 May

Yeah. That's definitely part of it. I think there's also a class of manager who dreads interacting with most of their reports. Low-emotional-risk interactions with a program that might do their job vs the possibility of fraught interactions.

Sessile Rhodes

@poochare.bsky.social

4 May

You only have to look at how well the poorly educated responded to Trump saying he loves them

Karl Bode

@karlbode.com

4 May

the problem is everyone else! All of your worst impulses are actually correct!

sielulintu.bsky.social

@sielulintu.bsky.social

4 May

I think it's similar to the tendency to interpret any vaguely face-like combinations of shapes as an actual face. Just as we are wired to recognize and respond to faces, we are wired to attribute consciousness to entities outside ourselves.