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- Hacker News
- This is a bizarre question to ask and frame as an unknown. Anyone who has held or had to watch after a baby can tell you that, although there is plenty of "autopilot" software running the show, there are moments of complete lucidity.
The complete disconnect between journalism and literally the most fundamental of basic human experiences is astounding.
If babies were not conscious then killing them would be no problem. It is their capacity for consciousness (however nascent) that makes them human, and therefore, sacred.
by popalchemist - only the fully-conscious Four Seasons Orlando baby.by blinkbat
- Off topic to the title/question but I find the babies wearing those ultrasound devices on their head to be incredibly cute although dystopian.by jtumbot
- by bigwheels
- gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/05/science/consciousness-bra...
Interesting. This increased my credence that newborns are conscious / sentient (which had been somewhat low).
by marojejian - But, is brain the source of consciousness?by feverzsj
- Humans have a flawed view of this stuff.
People incorrectly think LLMs are conscious because they output language. Yet we question consciousness and intelligence and so on in dogs, cats and now babies.
It’s a ridiculous human bias. Nobody thinks an image generator is conscious. Nobody thinks a human image generated by an image generator is real. But LLMs generate text and so people mistakenly assume they are conscious. LLMs can deep fake personas and act like characters and people think that’s what they actually are. It’s all a deep fake. When you talk to an LLM you are “talking” to a deep fake of a person in the same manner as an image generator deep faking a human image.
An now a paper of record is questioning whether babies are conscious. Why? Just because they don’t use language or have access to memories we question this!? Ultimately that’s what it boils down to regardless of what this article says.
by ViktorRay