The mirror test is frequently cited as a means of testing sentience.
OP I think you hit the nail on the head.
this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2026
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
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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.
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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Just think about the fact llms are basically trying to simulate reddit posts and then think again about using them.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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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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I,too, like pulling random shit from my ass.
Hahah, yeah, maybe I am doing that. that's why it is a shower thought, not a research paper proposal.
The thought comes from my (kind or recent) study of the algebra/calculus under LLMs (at least the feedforward and backpropagation part of them)
The interesting part is that my ass is non-differentiable at x=0:
Lim x→0⁺ δass/δx
≠
Lim x→0⁻ δass/δx
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
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.
False. My reflection can't tell me that pressing the Steam button and X will bring up the keyboard on Steam Deck's desktop mode.
pressing and holding the steam button tells u every steam shortcut
My dog doesn't pay any attention to mirrors, or llms.
If I understand your statement correctly, only the most intelligent creatures would understand that LLM's are themselves?
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And here I am practising my smile in the mirror (like that golden retriever)
Just noting that the mirror test is a bad way of studying theory of mind.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test#Criticism
It's interesting as a silly and absurd way humans used to demean other species. But I think it says a lot more about those who use it than the animals.
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