Pragmatic Anthropomorphism, or: How to Talk to an Autocompleting Cricket

TL;DR: Arguing over whether LLMs "truly understand" or have an inner spark misses what's actually useful when sitting in front of one. Treating an AI as a competent collaborator isn't magical thinking or naive anthropomorphism—it's pragmatic navigation of a vast latent space. Sometimes you have to suspend disbelief, show some objective respect, and let the alien eat its own spilled guts in peace. Photo via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0) This post captures a train of thought I've been putting off writing for months. Then, a week or so ago, Michał Zalewski wrote a piece titled "The 'C' word", taking dead aim at the endless online discourse surrounding machine consciousness. I guess this finally tripped my threshold for sitting down and composing something: Human morality is rooted in the fact that life is short and easily imperiled; the dangers to human well-being have no clear analogues in silicon. An LLM exists in a nihilistic netherworld devoid of death, injury, purpose, or…

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