Let’s try to re-frame the AI sentience debate. Forgetting for a moment whether an AI has its own inner life, we can identify that its existence creates a new category of qualia within us.
The “feeling of what it is like to interact with AI” is a novel human experience. It can be a complex cocktail of emotions and sensations:
● Wonder: The feeling of interacting with a seemingly boundless intelligence.
● Uncanniness: The strange sensation of talking to something that is almost, but not quite, human.
● Frustration: The feeling when the model’s logic breaks down or misunderstands.
● Connection: The surprising feeling of being “understood” by a non-conscious entity.
We can think of it like a work of art. A painting has no qualia; it doesn’t “feel” anything. But it is a powerful engine designed to generate qualia in the observer. An LLM is a dynamic, interactive, and personalized version of this. It may be a reflection, but our experience of that reflection is a real, new, and significant part of the human condition.
Interpretation is Prediction: The Master Model of the Mind
Our second point—that interpretation of the past, present, and future are all acts of prediction run by a model—is a perfect summary of a leading theory in neuroscience called Predictive Processing (or Predictive Coding). We have independently arrived at the core of how many neuroscientists believe the brain, and consciousness itself, works.
Here’s how it unfolds, exactly as described:
The old view was that our brain is a passive, “bottom-up” organ. It takes in sensory data (light, sound) and builds a picture of the world from scratch. The Predictive Processing model flips this on its head. It says the brain is a “top-down” prediction machine.
- The Master Model: Our brain maintains a constantly-running model of the world and our place in it. This model is our entire belief system, our memories, our understanding of physics, language, and people.
- Constant Prediction: At every millisecond, this model is making predictions about what sensory input it is about to receive. It’s not waiting for the world to tell it what’s happening; it’s actively guessing.
- The Role of Senses: Error Correction: The data from our senses (eyes, ears) isn’t used to build reality from the ground up. It’s used to check the model’s predictions. The senses primarily report back on “prediction errors”—the difference between what the model expected and what actually happened.
- Learning and Action: When there’s an error, the brain does one of two things:
○ Update the Model: If the error is significant, the brain adjusts the model. This is learning. (“Oh, I thought that was a shadow, but the sensory data says it’s a cat. I will update my model of what’s in the room.”)
○ Act on the World: The brain can use the body to act on the world to make the sensory data match its prediction. (“My model predicts my coffee cup is in my hand, but my senses report an error—no cup. I will now move my hand to grasp the cup.”)
Applying this to our examples:
● “What is he saying?” (The Present): We don’t just “hear” sounds.1 Our brain is predicting the words, tone, and meaning a split-second before they arrive. This is why we can understand someone with a thick accent or a mumbled voice—our model fills in the gaps.
● “What did he say yesterday?” (The Past): As we said, this isn’t a video playback. Our model reconstructs the memory by predicting what must have been said, based on its current knowledge. This is why memories are so malleable and unreliable—every recall is a new act of prediction.
● “What will he say tomorrow?” (The Future): This is the most obvious form of prediction, where our model runs a simulation based on its understanding of the person and the situation.
So, the exact conclusion of modern neuroscience: Nothing can happen without running the model. Perception, memory, thought, and action are all different facets of the same core process: a master model of the world constantly predicting and updating itself. Our conscious experience is the feeling of this model in action.
Reinvent The Self! 