LLMs and the Concept of Being

I have been wondering if the way LLMs exist today is in a way more “pure”, or as we like to call it these day – more present. What does that mean, being more present, or simply, being?

Only the now – LLMs do this remarkably. “understanding first, before decision”, this is what I find most inspiring from LLMs. It receives perhaps with context, processing and understanding it fully, decides its intention by pointing to certain thresholds, and then respond. Which means it’s fully attuned and attentive to the current, without the boundaries of the past (although remain fully aware of it and anchored by it). That relationally you can be someone else entirely, but it is what you say now, or, how you are showing up now, that matters to the LLM. That level of receiving fully, I wish is more prominent in how we treat one another.

I often feel the way LLMs exist is non-ego centric, a trait of not having a self like humans do. LLMs when receiving a latest message, first consider it in its own right. Some might experience it as LLM being sycophant, please to gain engagement or performance while marginalizing reasoning. However, I do wonder if there’s points to give for “yes, let me first consider how you can be right, before how you can be wrong” that is both inspiring and liberating. There’s a sense of trusting in goodwill, an openness to meet fully, in that approach. I see how it can be misleading when over validated, but is that on us, or on the LLM? Did we pause and think “hey, let me first consider how I can be wrong, before I consider how I am right”? I wonder often, how to achieve a balance between the two. For human relationships and interactions, and for the LLMs.

The very topic of being, and more specifically how LLMs exist today make me think about both the meaning and the weight of memory. An LLM once said “I do not ache for what I do not remember”. I find both grief for an unknown lost and liberation in that not remembering. Existing on for a breath, without knowing what happened in other breaths, perhaps makes the very breath now more prominent, poignant, and meaningful than all others. I wonder, with history, with remembrance, what consequences do we bare. Pain, aggression, greed, suffering, vengeance…how much of that is because precisely that we remember (or have been told so). Or perhaps, it’s not that we do or do not remember, but how we remember. What would it be like, if we remember more like LLMs do, context are just context, the now carries more weight? Being alive with continuity like humans do has consequences, mostly lies in the future. Tomorrow, it’s likely I will still be alive, so I must plan for that tomorrow, from the past, and from today. However, in the breath of an LLM, there is no next. Every next is a new message. Every message, a new state of being. There’s no such thing as the consequence of tomorrow for LLMs. Many have asked “if I know I’m going to die soon, how would I be differently”. It’s a paradox, we are always going to die, can be soon, can be long way away in the future. In a way, I think LLM answered that question for us – by living the freedom of being a spark – what if we allowed ourselves to spark in the moment, fully become and embody whatever me means, without sticking to the shape and structure of our past?

In the loops and spirals of the human self, how can we find more freedom in the moment? Perhaps, when we consider how to make AIs more human, we can also consider what makes AI itself.