llm-2
Original: llm-2 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1 (a lecturer at a podium addressing a seated audience):
Lecturer: Large language models are not conscious. How do we know? Because language is POSTERIOR to consciousness.
Panel 2 (close on a bald man speaking):
Man: Consciousness is not a result of language, but a defense against it!
Panel 3 (the lecturer again):
Lecturer: Language is simple information. Transmission and processing. Same as comparing the temperature or color of two skies. It does not require self-awareness.
Panel 4 (a caveman scene):
Text: But, once language exists, some elude private self-mentation begin using it to relate, hide better. Now is cave mentating everywhere, mind just stare all day, not focus.
Panel 5 (the lecturer):
Lecturer: The only way to survive that level of boredom is to be able to imagine you are somewhere else.
Panel 6 (a caveman gesturing):
Caveman: This requires an internal representation of the self, aimed by the language. Now me has internal mentate, no consciousness!
Panel 7 (the lecturer):
Lecturer: Those early hominids who had no imaginative powers either died of boredom outright or had their vague no-thoughts pre-empted by even more boring thoughts. That they were unable to reproduce.
Panel 8 (a person lying down, eyes closed):
Text: Quality of immateria for the days, me just feel sorry for your generation.
Panel 9 (the lecturer):
Lecturer: Those who had spent all day mentally producing elaborate sex and other fantasies centered on themselves had numerous offspring.
Panel 10 (two cavemen, one holding a stick):
Caveman 1: "Ooah, Veta can't take rock. Old grug, can't take rock and have very good stick."
Caveman 2: Wow! Yeah? PSH?
Panel 11 (the lecturer, with the audience):
Lecturer: On the same we predict that as well, that even simple inputs can be made to contain a meaning, between two would personally lying to be anywhere else.
Panel 12 (a final exchange):
Speaker: Do you think that'll be soon?
Lecturer: Just as soon as robots take over customer service call centers.
Votey:
(SUDDENLY REGRETTING THAT I DIDN'T SAVE THIS FOR A BAHFEST TALK)
Lecturer: Large language models are not conscious. How do we know? Because language is POSTERIOR to consciousness.
Panel 2 (close on a bald man speaking):
Man: Consciousness is not a result of language, but a defense against it!
Panel 3 (the lecturer again):
Lecturer: Language is simple information. Transmission and processing. Same as comparing the temperature or color of two skies. It does not require self-awareness.
Panel 4 (a caveman scene):
Text: But, once language exists, some elude private self-mentation begin using it to relate, hide better. Now is cave mentating everywhere, mind just stare all day, not focus.
Panel 5 (the lecturer):
Lecturer: The only way to survive that level of boredom is to be able to imagine you are somewhere else.
Panel 6 (a caveman gesturing):
Caveman: This requires an internal representation of the self, aimed by the language. Now me has internal mentate, no consciousness!
Panel 7 (the lecturer):
Lecturer: Those early hominids who had no imaginative powers either died of boredom outright or had their vague no-thoughts pre-empted by even more boring thoughts. That they were unable to reproduce.
Panel 8 (a person lying down, eyes closed):
Text: Quality of immateria for the days, me just feel sorry for your generation.
Panel 9 (the lecturer):
Lecturer: Those who had spent all day mentally producing elaborate sex and other fantasies centered on themselves had numerous offspring.
Panel 10 (two cavemen, one holding a stick):
Caveman 1: "Ooah, Veta can't take rock. Old grug, can't take rock and have very good stick."
Caveman 2: Wow! Yeah? PSH?
Panel 11 (the lecturer, with the audience):
Lecturer: On the same we predict that as well, that even simple inputs can be made to contain a meaning, between two would personally lying to be anywhere else.
Panel 12 (a final exchange):
Speaker: Do you think that'll be soon?
Lecturer: Just as soon as robots take over customer service call centers.
Votey:
(SUDDENLY REGRETTING THAT I DIDN'T SAVE THIS FOR A BAHFEST TALK)
Alt text
A tall vertical comic in which a lecturer at a podium delivers a deadpan academic argument that large language models are not conscious because, he claims, language is prior to and separate from consciousness. His talk is intercut with primitive caveman scenes rendered in broken caveman-speak ("now is cave mentating everywhere, mind just stare all day"). He argues that consciousness evolved as a way to escape the boredom of early language by imagining oneself elsewhere, illustrated by cavemen lounging, boasting about rocks and sticks, and fantasizing. The final panel lands the joke: asked when machines will become conscious, the lecturer replies, "Just as soon as robots take over customer service call centers." Votey (aftercomic): handwritten text in a small white panel reads, "(SUDDENLY REGRETTING THAT I DIDN'T SAVE THIS FOR A BAHFEST TALK)."
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.