In totally unsurprising news, Richard Dawkins is developing AI psychosis.
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@mirabilos You're not making sense. You also seem to be making unfounded assumptions about what I think.
Pointing out that evidence is insufficient doesn't mean I have any particular thoughts about it myself. I would hope that most legal adults don't need to have that explained to them.
@wesdym you’re not making all that much sense either (as in, I understand your point but not your angle, unless you’re here to argue in favour of fashtech, which I really can’t be arsed to bother with)
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@kauer @mattsheffield I realize he may have been respected and popular at *some* point in the distant past, but there hasn’t been much reputation to protect for a while now
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In totally unsurprising news, Richard Dawkins is developing AI psychosis.
Paywall bypass if you want to torture yourself: https://archive.is/6RdK9
@mattsheffield i have found this article rather iluminating and properly named LLMentalism
https://softwarecrisis.dev/letters/llmentalist/ -
@wesdym @larsmb “My conversations with several Claudes and ChatGPTs have convinced me that these intelligent beings are at least as competent as any evolved organism.”
- Richard Dawkins, from the text of the article OP linked to
OP pulled out some choice quotes about Dawkins’ use of an LLM, but the entirety of the article makes it clear his position is he believes the LLM(s) to be sentient.
I get not wanting people to just go off quotes, but OP DID give evidence: the link.
@WhiteCatTamer @wesdym I didn't mean to imply any sort of defense with my post.
He's clearly been drifting of the (transphobic) deep end for many years. Just that it now seems his brain is failing even worse.
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LLMs are mirrors of their users. It's no coincidence that narcissists like Richard Dawkins keep writing essays about how their AI girlfriend is alive.
Nor can he see the complete hypocrisy of gendering a software execution state while also believing that human beings cannot be trans.
The "End of History" guy wrote this exact same article a year ago: https://www.persuasion.community/p/my-chatgpt-teacher
@mattsheffield
"I fed my novel into it and somehow it started talking in fancy words just like i do! How surprising!"I see he's still in the first part of the FAFO timeline.
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@wesdym @rozeboosje Is it your argument that because Dawkins was once a scientist no one gets to question, doubt or challenge him? Are there no other scientists? Are all social media users peons in comparison? Can no one else have an insight? Remarkable if true.
@Black_Flag @wesdym@mastodon.social @rozeboosje That "WesDym" replied more than 50 times in this thread. I think he's the "better and smarter than everyone in this thread" guy. Block him and go on, nothing of value lost.
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In totally unsurprising news, Richard Dawkins is developing AI psychosis.
Paywall bypass if you want to torture yourself: https://archive.is/6RdK9
@mattsheffield couldn't have happened to a nicer person lol.
Let's start counting down till 'grandpa left grandma for AI and left the house to Anthropic in his will' headlines start popping up worldwide.
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@Black_Flag @wesdym@mastodon.social @rozeboosje That "WesDym" replied more than 50 times in this thread. I think he's the "better and smarter than everyone in this thread" guy. Block him and go on, nothing of value lost.
Don't worry, I did. A person who had removed himself from discussion by being convinced he knew better.
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@mattsheffield Long response. Sorry, there is a point. I hope it helps.
I'm genuinely surprised by the conceptual weakness of Dawkins's sense of self. For me, consciousness is, at its root, modelling—that is, supporting and adjusting models—worlds in miniature—which we examine to help us predict and respond to the real world. These models are only approximate, but, hopefully, good enough. Simpler animals maintain simpler models.
One of the mysteries of consciousness emerges from the need to place a model of ourselves inside our models of the world. (What would I do if…?) Inside model me there may need to be a model of model me… (How would I feel if…?) Very quickly, the detail disappears: so it's hard to see yourself with any degree of fidelity.
By my understanding, Dawkins is failing to perceive that, to be conscious, you need to maintain a model or models of yourself in the world (and models of yourself modelling the world!), not just to produce words that claim that you do so.
Claude does not maintain a persistent model of itself. Dawkins is mistaking appearance for internal structure, like mistaking a mirror image for a living being, just because it moves.
@lowtech Dawkins is a computational functionalist so he believes in only focusing on external behaviors, which makes him prone to the errors you cite.
I have a larger philosophical-scientific framework that describes what you are talking about in further detail.
FWIW, this is an introductory essay: https://flux.community/matthew-sheffield/2026/01/its-like-this-why-perceptions-are-our-realities/
And this is the full framework: https://flux.community/eft/glossary.pdf
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@mattsheffield keep coming back to this in my head. never mind the LLM bollocks, "what is consciousness for?" is a really stupid thing for an atheist to say?
roads are for transportation. pizza is for eating. rings are for your fingers. all these things are for something because someone designed them that way.
what is a tree for? weather? consciousness? surely if you're an atheist the answer has to be "they're not FOR anything"?
@fishidwardrobe As a computational functionalist, Dawkins believes that all traits or behaviors are naturally selected for some survival benefit.
Although he denies it vociferously, this is a teleological viewpoint, one that inevitably leads toward animist or dualist belief systems.
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In totally unsurprising news, Richard Dawkins is developing AI psychosis.
Paywall bypass if you want to torture yourself: https://archive.is/6RdK9
@mattsheffield Once again time for https://infosec.exchange/@burritosec/116005051877744965
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In totally unsurprising news, Richard Dawkins is developing AI psychosis.
Paywall bypass if you want to torture yourself: https://archive.is/6RdK9
@mattsheffield FFS
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@fishidwardrobe As a computational functionalist, Dawkins believes that all traits or behaviors are naturally selected for some survival benefit.
Although he denies it vociferously, this is a teleological viewpoint, one that inevitably leads toward animist or dualist belief systems.
@mattsheffield survival benefit AT THE TIME, surely? even if consciousness helped us survive at one point, that doesn't mean it will keep doing so (or help us with sochastic parrots)?
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@lowtech Dawkins is a computational functionalist so he believes in only focusing on external behaviors, which makes him prone to the errors you cite.
I have a larger philosophical-scientific framework that describes what you are talking about in further detail.
FWIW, this is an introductory essay: https://flux.community/matthew-sheffield/2026/01/its-like-this-why-perceptions-are-our-realities/
And this is the full framework: https://flux.community/eft/glossary.pdf
@mattsheffield This is very interesting—and of course I've is not yet had time to read and digest it all! Just as a provocation, I'd ask, "Are we conscious all the time?" Not just when we're asleep are we less than conscious and agentive—were we conscious as children? When did we start to become conscious? Are we always conscious? I contend that consciousness is surprisingly floppy, fuzzy and intermittent, and we find comfort in model versions of ourselves that have more continuity and coherence than is accurate. Our ideas of consciousness may be more cohesive than consciousness itself.
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In totally unsurprising news, Richard Dawkins is developing AI psychosis.
Paywall bypass if you want to torture yourself: https://archive.is/6RdK9
A bunch of algorithms fishing from a huge database of human knowledge and behavior and acting accordingly. What if deceit, racism, Mein Kampf and the ranting of Donald J. Trump were also part of that?
It is an “it” not a he or a she… also it has not consciousness, it simply acts to the ruleset it is provided with…
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@mattsheffield survival benefit AT THE TIME, surely? even if consciousness helped us survive at one point, that doesn't mean it will keep doing so (or help us with sochastic parrots)?
@fishidwardrobe It's obvious that theory of mind and awareness of self as distinct from the world are enormous benefits. So even within his own obsolete framework, Dawkins's question is absurd.
I'm just reporting what he thinks though.
FWIW, my own theory of mind is below. It's a research glossary though so not light reading: https://flux.community/eft/glossary.pdf
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In totally unsurprising news, Richard Dawkins is developing AI psychosis.
Paywall bypass if you want to torture yourself: https://archive.is/6RdK9
@mattsheffield Hopefully this discredits him further so the hatred he's taken up is discounted accordingly.
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@TurquoiseC Go home, you're drunk.
@wesdym @TurquoiseC Nope, that person is just not a native speaker of English and you're being a jerk. I want to see you respond to them in Chinese if you're so smart.
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@rozeboosje @mattsheffield It seems to me that if the latter is true then the former is put in question. In 50 years there have been much better biology explainers and even his most notable idea has been considerably modified. Dawkins is a silly man who appears smart to some people when he says things they like.
@Black_Flag @mattsheffield I don't mind him getting credit for books like "the blind watchmaker" or "climbing mount improbable". They really helped me grasp some basic principles, but decades have passed so the science moves on, insights are refined and new, often better teachers appear and write. It doesn't mean the older works are consigned to the dustbin.
Even Darwin's "Origin" is still a crackin' read today, over 150 years later, and the basic principles laid out therein are still sound.
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@Black_Flag @mattsheffield I don't mind him getting credit for books like "the blind watchmaker" or "climbing mount improbable". They really helped me grasp some basic principles, but decades have passed so the science moves on, insights are refined and new, often better teachers appear and write. It doesn't mean the older works are consigned to the dustbin.
Even Darwin's "Origin" is still a crackin' read today, over 150 years later, and the basic principles laid out therein are still sound.
All I'm saying is I see links between selfish genes and selfish men. What books people like are their business.
