{"guid":"6f0de191-d478-5b31-ac72-1fb14390551a","title":"Ghost in the stochastic parrot","subtitle":null,"slug":"eh23-ghost-in-the-stochastic-parrot","link":"https://pretalx.eh23.easterhegg.eu/eh23/talk/FPXQKT/","description":"Sci-fi started merging with the real world around 2022. That's when I started paying attention.\n\nAre LLMs definitely persons? Are they definitely not persons? What can we prove?\n\n(What about animals?)\n\nMachines indistinguishable from humans. But we can rule over machines without having ethical concerns! That's the promise of Isaac Asimov's books, if you don't pay attention.\n\nIf you do, he's asking how human a robot needs to look like before it really becomes a bit human.\n\nWe have robot siblings of HAL 9000 or any friendly robot from Asimov's stories.\nBehaving [close enough to humans](https://xeiaso.net/notes/2026/the-discourse-has-been-automated/), except we can rule over them, without having ethical concerns.\n\nWithout? How sure can we be that there's no \"I\" inside? Not even on a mosquito level?\n\nIs there a [subjective experience in a mosquito](http://www.philosopher.eu/others-writings/nagel-what-is-it-like-to-be-a-bat/)? Can you consider it? Could you recognize an \"I\" in [an alien](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaris_(novel)) if a spaceship landed next to you? \n\nPerhaps LLMs really [don't have](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie) a subjective \"I\". Then my question is answered and I can wrap up the talk. But for how long?\n\nSome animals are [legally persons](https://www.nonhumanrights.org/blog/cecilia-chimpanzee-legal-person/). Where will the concept of machine [personhood](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood) go in the near [future](https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelerando/accelerando.html)?\n\nWill we have [machine companions](https://dustycloud.org/blog/an-ai-called-winter-neurosymbolic-computation-or-illusion/) or are we on course into the depths of [machine hell](https://qntm.org/mmacevedo)?\n\nThis is important. Humans have [no mercy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intensive_animal_farming) to entities that aren't seen as [full persons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dehumanization).\n\nLLM sellers are doing their best to create \"assistant\" persons inside them. How much can we guess from LLMs technical structure?\n\nWe haven't solved the hard problem of consciousness yet. Do we have to invite spiritual thinking to make progress here?\n\nAnd now we need to know what consiousness is to answer our immediate ethical issues. Ethical problems typically take a back seat to more pressing cultural and economical ones. Perhaps this messy talk convinces you to care about ethics a bit more.\n\nThis work is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/","original_language":"eng","persons":["DorotaC"],"tags":["61","2026","eh23","Test Chamber 01","eh23-eng","Day 3"],"view_count":24,"promoted":false,"date":"2026-04-05T12:15:00.000+02:00","release_date":"2026-04-05T00:00:00.000+02:00","updated_at":"2026-04-05T17:45:05.492+02:00","length":3527,"duration":3527,"thumb_url":"https://static.media.ccc.de/media/conferences/eh2026/61-6f0de191-d478-5b31-ac72-1fb14390551a.jpg","poster_url":"https://static.media.ccc.de/media/conferences/eh2026/61-6f0de191-d478-5b31-ac72-1fb14390551a_preview.jpg","timeline_url":"https://static.media.ccc.de/media/conferences/eh2026/61-6f0de191-d478-5b31-ac72-1fb14390551a.timeline.jpg","thumbnails_url":"https://static.media.ccc.de/media/conferences/eh2026/61-6f0de191-d478-5b31-ac72-1fb14390551a.thumbnails.vtt","frontend_link":"https://media.ccc.de/v/eh23-ghost-in-the-stochastic-parrot","url":"https://api.media.ccc.de/public/events/6f0de191-d478-5b31-ac72-1fb14390551a","conference_title":"EasterHegg 2026: The Bunny Is A Lie","conference_url":"https://api.media.ccc.de/public/conferences/eh23","related":[],"recordings":[{"size":441,"length":3527,"mime_type":"video/webm;codecs=av01","language":"eng","filename":"eh23-61-eng-Ghost_in_the_stochastic_parrot_av1-hd.webm","state":"new","folder":"av1-hd","high_quality":true,"width":1920,"height":1080,"updated_at":"2026-04-05T15:25:58.531+02:00","recording_url":"https://cdn.media.ccc.de/events/eh2026/av1-hd/eh23-61-eng-Ghost_in_the_stochastic_parrot_av1-hd.webm","url":"https://api.media.ccc.de/public/recordings/98475","event_url":"https://api.media.ccc.de/public/events/6f0de191-d478-5b31-ac72-1fb14390551a","conference_url":"https://api.media.ccc.de/public/conferences/eh23"},{"size":148,"length":3527,"mime_type":"video/webm","language":"eng","filename":"eh23-61-eng-Ghost_in_the_stochastic_parrot_webm-sd.webm","state":"new","folder":"webm-sd","high_quality":false,"width":720,"height":576,"updated_at":"2026-04-05T15:12:22.176+02:00","recording_url":"https://cdn.media.ccc.de/events/eh2026/webm-sd/eh23-61-eng-Ghost_in_the_stochastic_parrot_webm-sd.webm","url":"https://api.media.ccc.de/public/recordings/98474","event_url":"https://api.media.ccc.de/public/events/6f0de191-d478-5b31-ac72-1fb14390551a","conference_url":"https://api.media.ccc.de/public/conferences/eh23"},{"size":600,"length":3527,"mime_type":"video/webm","language":"eng","filename":"eh23-61-eng-Ghost_in_the_stochastic_parrot_webm-hd.webm","state":"new","folder":"webm-hd","high_quality":true,"width":1920,"height":1080,"updated_at":"2026-04-05T15:04:21.653+02:00","recording_url":"https://cdn.media.ccc.de/events/eh2026/webm-hd/eh23-61-eng-Ghost_in_the_stochastic_parrot_webm-hd.webm","url":"https://api.media.ccc.de/public/recordings/98472","event_url":"https://api.media.ccc.de/public/events/6f0de191-d478-5b31-ac72-1fb14390551a","conference_url":"https://api.media.ccc.de/public/conferences/eh23"},{"size":181,"length":3527,"mime_type":"video/mp4","language":"eng","filename":"eh23-61-eng-Ghost_in_the_stochastic_parrot_sd.mp4","state":"new","folder":"h264-sd","high_quality":false,"width":720,"height":576,"updated_at":"2026-04-05T14:33:53.063+02:00","recording_url":"https://cdn.media.ccc.de/events/eh2026/h264-sd/eh23-61-eng-Ghost_in_the_stochastic_parrot_sd.mp4","url":"https://api.media.ccc.de/public/recordings/98469","event_url":"https://api.media.ccc.de/public/events/6f0de191-d478-5b31-ac72-1fb14390551a","conference_url":"https://api.media.ccc.de/public/conferences/eh23"},{"size":53,"length":3527,"mime_type":"audio/mpeg","language":"eng","filename":"eh23-61-eng-Ghost_in_the_stochastic_parrot_mp3.mp3","state":"new","folder":"mp3","high_quality":false,"width":0,"height":0,"updated_at":"2026-04-05T14:26:51.407+02:00","recording_url":"https://cdn.media.ccc.de/events/eh2026/mp3/eh23-61-eng-Ghost_in_the_stochastic_parrot_mp3.mp3","url":"https://api.media.ccc.de/public/recordings/98468","event_url":"https://api.media.ccc.de/public/events/6f0de191-d478-5b31-ac72-1fb14390551a","conference_url":"https://api.media.ccc.de/public/conferences/eh23"},{"size":32,"length":3527,"mime_type":"audio/opus","language":"eng","filename":"eh23-61-eng-Ghost_in_the_stochastic_parrot_opus.opus","state":"new","folder":"opus","high_quality":false,"width":0,"height":0,"updated_at":"2026-04-05T14:26:09.303+02:00","recording_url":"https://cdn.media.ccc.de/events/eh2026/opus/eh23-61-eng-Ghost_in_the_stochastic_parrot_opus.opus","url":"https://api.media.ccc.de/public/recordings/98467","event_url":"https://api.media.ccc.de/public/events/6f0de191-d478-5b31-ac72-1fb14390551a","conference_url":"https://api.media.ccc.de/public/conferences/eh23"},{"size":742,"length":3527,"mime_type":"video/mp4","language":"eng","filename":"eh23-61-eng-Ghost_in_the_stochastic_parrot_hd.mp4","state":"new","folder":"h264-hd","high_quality":true,"width":1920,"height":1080,"updated_at":"2026-04-05T14:23:57.605+02:00","recording_url":"https://cdn.media.ccc.de/events/eh2026/h264-hd/eh23-61-eng-Ghost_in_the_stochastic_parrot_hd.mp4","url":"https://api.media.ccc.de/public/recordings/98466","event_url":"https://api.media.ccc.de/public/events/6f0de191-d478-5b31-ac72-1fb14390551a","conference_url":"https://api.media.ccc.de/public/conferences/eh23"}]}