More Compute Won't Wake It Up

The essay questions the belief that scaling large language models will automatically produce consciousness.

It reframes consciousness and perception as layered renderings shaped by sensory limits, memory, emotion, and social conditioning.

The author compares this to LLM pre-training and RLHF: better outputs do not prove an inner observer exists.

The central point is that improved model performance does not answer whether a genuine mind or subjective experience is present.