I think the mystery of why we're not just philosophical zombies was never going to have some eureka moment, given that it's quite plain it's an emergent property. Was there a creature in history that wasn't sentient that gave birth to a creature that was? Clearly not.
The reason recent results are significant in this discussion is because:
- Larger networks are already displaying emergent behaviours that couldn't have been predicted beforehand. It doesn't have to be 'human-like' intelligence for that to be significant.
- We're getting close to a point where our models will start exhibiting something of the order of the same level of intelligence of primitive creatures.
So the wide-eyed hysteria you're seeing is really just new data points confirming what many of us always assumed would be the case.
The reason recent results are significant in this discussion is because:
- Larger networks are already displaying emergent behaviours that couldn't have been predicted beforehand. It doesn't have to be 'human-like' intelligence for that to be significant.
- We're getting close to a point where our models will start exhibiting something of the order of the same level of intelligence of primitive creatures.
So the wide-eyed hysteria you're seeing is really just new data points confirming what many of us always assumed would be the case.