For example, there’s a case to be made that the ecosystem we collectively exist in is far more complex than the largest LLM, but it’s currently less popular to debate “is the earth conscious?” or “is the universe conscious”, presumable because we can’t speak to those systems in human language.
I’m trying to tease out what I think is the likelihood that we tend to ascribe consciousness to AI for the same reasons we see faces in clouds. We’re biologically conditioned to recognize patterns that indicate “like us”, but I think a number of thought experiments point to either a) there’s no reason to believe AI is “conscious” or b) the conversation has to to be expanded beyond AI.
Unlikely. I think the same mental machinery that runs tribalism is why humans like to categorize rather than consider things as continuous. And, worse, I think the actual purpose of tribalism is to turn off higher level though, so you, an otherwise social creature, can rationalize the need to kill your fellow man in harsh times. I think "don't go outside the categorical box" is deeply hard wired.
I'm not arguing against the idea that consciousness is a spectrum. If anything, I'm agreeing. I'm just pointing out that if AI is somewhere on that spectrum, there is almost certainly a lot more on that spectrum than we're currently discussing as a species.
I have to point out the irony of the categorical nature of your claim about categorical thinking ;)