Topic: Life

The Metacognition Problem

Why AI Can't Actually Improve Itself

Values and the consciousness that can hold them are metaphysically tied to living organization. Only entities facing the fundamental alternative of continued existence versus permanent cessation can possess values. Because contemporary AI lacks that life-constituting stake, it cannot instantiate the consciousness required for true metacognition.

Can a Language Model Be Conscious?

I had a fun philosophical conversation with Claude (a large language model AI service) about the nature of consciousness, ethics, and eventually art.

Because Claude was my intellectual foil, I then had it describe the chat in the form of an essay—and it did it from its own “point of view”!

The chat itself helped clarify my thinking as an Objectivist about the necessary relationship between consciousness and life. Maybe you’ll find it enlightening, too.