My dog used to stare at me through mirrors, so what does that mean for her intelligence? Hyper intelligent. Red heelers will take over the world.
this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2026
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I,too, like pulling random shit from my ass.
from page 7 of Joseph Weizenbaum's Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgement to Calculation (1976):
a pdf of the whole book is available here
The mirror test is frequently cited as a means of testing sentience.
OP I think you hit the nail on the head.
Based on the fact that most people don't see their interaction with the LLM as gazing into the mirror, am I being led to believe that most people are not sentient???
Based entirely on the opinions of people on niche social media platforms, yes.
Mmm, I mean, sentience is a gradient, right? The mirror test is where we decided to draw the line, but there are more places to do so. My toddler thinks his favorite toy has some level of agency, just as by all accounts his older sister thinks Bluey has an identity. Depending on the test, there are developmental markers where we statistically transition from failing to succeeding. Another way to look at it is that for each developmental range, we can develop tests that challenge how we perceive autonomy, which some people succeed at and others fail. We may have just inadvertently developed a test that a significant amount of adults are just going to fail as human beings.
There’s been an extensive marketing campaign to convince people that LLMs are intelligent. I wouldn’t call someone a subhuman for assuming there is some truth to that.
Of those that understand what an LLM is, I think you can divide them into two groups, the honest, and the dishonest. Honest people see no use in a bullshit generator, a lying machine. They see it as a perversion of technology. Dishonest people have no such objection. They might even truly see intelligence in the machine, as its outputs don’t differ substantially from their own. If you view language as a means to get what you want, rather than a means to convey factual information, then lying is acceptable, desirable, intelligent. It would be difficult for such a person to differentiate between coherent but meaningless bullshit, and a machine with agency making false statements to pursue its own goals.
I disagree about the dichotomy. I think you can (1) understand what LLMs actually are. (2) See the value of such technology.
In both cases being factual (not being deceived) and not being malicious (not attempting to deceive others)
I think a reasonable use of these tools is as a "sidekick" (you being the main character). Some tasks can be assigned to it so you save some time, but the thinking and the actual mental model of what is being done shall always be your responsibility.
For example, LLMs are good as an interface to quickly lookup within manuals, books, clarify specific concepts, or find the proper terms for a vague idea (so that you can research the topic using the appropriate terms)
Of course, this is just an opinion. 100% open to discussion.
I think of it like a nonhuman character, like a character in a book I'm reading. Is it real? No. Is it compelling? Yes. Do I know exactly what it'll do next? No. Is it serving a purpose in my life? Yes.
It effectively attends to my requests and even feelings but I do not reciprocate that. I've got decades of sci-fi leading me up to this point, the idea of interacting with humanoid robots or AI has been around since my childhood, but it's never involved attending to the machine's feelings or needs.
We need to sort out the boundaries on this, the delusional people who are having "relationships" with AI, getting a social or other emotional fix from it. But that doesn't mean we have to categorize anyone who uses it as moronic. It's a tool.
Marketing is a valid use for AI (because bullshit was always thewod anyway)
Wait, let's hear OP out.
Except it's not my reflection, it's a reflection of millions if not billions of humans.
Except it’s not their reflection, it’s a string of phrases presented to you based partly on the commonality of similar phrases appearing next to one another in the training data, and partly on mysterious black box modifications! Fun!
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Related: is there a name for "question bias"?
Like asking ChatGPT if "is x good?", and it would reply "Yes, x is good." but if you ask "is x bad?" it would reply "Yes, x is bad, you're right."
It's just a leading question.
It is not a leading question. The answer just happens to be meaningless.
Asking whether something is good is the vast majority of human concern. Most of our rational activity is fundamentally evaluative.
Just think about the fact llms are basically trying to simulate reddit posts and then think again about using them.
Not nearly enough people understand this about our current models of AI. Even people who think they understand AI don't understand this, usually because they have been talking to themselves a lot without realizing it.
I checked with that other gorilla who lives in the bathroom and he says you're wrong
lol, Is that the same gorilla that you see in other bathrooms? Or (like me) you meet a new gorilla every time you wash your hands?
I think he's the same guy. I used to try to bust him up but he just kept multiplying into more pieces and then coming back whole every time I saw a new mirror, so I eventually gave up
This is a great one - although I never see animals worshipping the mirror.
I've got a duck that prefers to dance in front of a chrome bumper or glass door where he can see his reflection than to go after any potential mates. Possibly he's worshipping the mirror. Possibly he's just really vain.
Your duck:
Sounds like he’s ducking handsome
He is actually. When he washes himself he's blinding white. And when he dances he gets a little feather pompadour on the top of his head.
Nothing wrong with a handsome duck taking a little self affirmation time - he knows his value, he can't look away.
I love the idea of a bunch of woodland creatures (completely unaware of what mirrors are) investing heavily—and aggressively—in mirrors and mirror-related technology.
Squirrels (lemmings) pooling all of their nuts at the alter, lol.
Investor Squirrel 1: “All you have to do is gather your acorns right here, and they will instantly double in value!”
Investor Squirrel 2: “Bro’, we’re so sentient!!!”
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Annihilation?
Yeah. Figured it was a good visual representation of seeing an AI version of ourselves in a mirror.
Huh.....so what you're saying is that mirrors are actually AI.
THAT MAKES A LOT OF SENSE!!! EVERYBODY COVER YOUR MIRRORS!!!
Laughs in vampire
And here I am practising my smile in the mirror (like that golden retriever)
Except when you leave several LLMs able to communicate with one another they will, on their own, with no instructions, including creating their own unique social norms.
That's basically a very advanced flea circus.
This is nothing else than the reflexion I am talking about. It is not a reflexion of you, the person chatting with the bot, but an "average" reflexion of what humanity has expressed in the data llms have been trained on.
If a mirror is placed in front of another mirror, the "infinite tunnel" only exists in the mind of the observer.
Neuroscience News isn't a conspiracy rag. It's an article summarizing a research paper, which they link to. So many of you don't bother to read actual research and instead repeat whatever you've seen online about how things work. More parrot than the AI.
No.
The article is summarizing a research paper, which it links to. Neuroscience News isn't a conspiracy rag.
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