this post was submitted on 04 May 2026
198 points (97.1% liked)
Science Memes
20105 readers
1317 users here now
Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!
A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
Rules
- Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
- Keep it rooted (on topic).
- No spam.
- Infographics welcome, get schooled.
This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.
Research Committee
Other Mander Communities
Science and Research
Biology and Life Sciences
- !abiogenesis@mander.xyz
- !animal-behavior@mander.xyz
- !anthropology@mander.xyz
- !arachnology@mander.xyz
- !balconygardening@slrpnk.net
- !biodiversity@mander.xyz
- !biology@mander.xyz
- !biophysics@mander.xyz
- !botany@mander.xyz
- !ecology@mander.xyz
- !entomology@mander.xyz
- !fermentation@mander.xyz
- !herpetology@mander.xyz
- !houseplants@mander.xyz
- !medicine@mander.xyz
- !microscopy@mander.xyz
- !mycology@mander.xyz
- !nudibranchs@mander.xyz
- !nutrition@mander.xyz
- !palaeoecology@mander.xyz
- !palaeontology@mander.xyz
- !photosynthesis@mander.xyz
- !plantid@mander.xyz
- !plants@mander.xyz
- !reptiles and amphibians@mander.xyz
Physical Sciences
- !astronomy@mander.xyz
- !chemistry@mander.xyz
- !earthscience@mander.xyz
- !geography@mander.xyz
- !geospatial@mander.xyz
- !nuclear@mander.xyz
- !physics@mander.xyz
- !quantum-computing@mander.xyz
- !spectroscopy@mander.xyz
Humanities and Social Sciences
Practical and Applied Sciences
- !exercise-and sports-science@mander.xyz
- !gardening@mander.xyz
- !self sufficiency@mander.xyz
- !soilscience@slrpnk.net
- !terrariums@mander.xyz
- !timelapse@mander.xyz
Memes
Miscellaneous
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
He posted some Tweets about how he believes ChatGPT (or whichever AI service he uses, I can't recall) is sentient, and of course, female.
Has someone done a study on this? I've noticed everyone who claims to have a relationship with, if they're male it's female and vice versa. This includes married people and those in relationships
While the post is cringe inducing and dawkins is an ass, he doesn't quite say that claude is sentient. More that the ways we use to define it are all basically met by an llm. And argues that we need a better way to define it.
Basically arguing about a philisophical zombie
https://unherd.com/2026/04/is-ai-the-next-phase-of-evolution/#comment-1031777
(paywalled, but can be mitigated by the firefox reader mode, for example)
It's pretty simple, what's the LLM thinking about when it's not actively being prompted?
Does an LLM have the same "consciousness" when talking to someone else? Does the LLM even exist if it's not actively being talked to? If everyone just stops talking to it, does it "die" until someone else logs in and submits a prompt?
Claude.
It would be hilarious if he called ChatGPT Claudia though. If it was actually sentient, it might get offended.
You can't retain your level of intelligence forever, unfortunately. He's probably heading the same way I've seen people I watched get older and slip into things that I know they would have laughed off years before. Now he may have been a bigot and an asshole before, but him not understanding LLMs and their limitations suggests a definite decline in reasoning, from the person who helped me grasp evolutionary theory and the scale of time with his books.