How many digital minds can dance on the streaming multiprocessors of a GPU cluster?
Some of the technical details of the implementation of modern AI systems raise novel questions about computational functionalism. In particular, GPU clusters processing large language models often interweave the computations for many different chat responses. If the computations underlying these lan...
| Publicado en: | Synthese Vol. 206; no. 5; pp. 1 - 23 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Springer Nature
Nov2025
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=188712514&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 188712514 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00397857 4LI jtl: Synthese issn: 00397857 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Nov2025 vid: 206 iid: 5 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 188712514 10.1007/s11229-025-05310-1 ppf: 1 ppct: 22 formats: tig: atl: How many digital minds can dance on the streaming multiprocessors of a GPU cluster? aug: au: Shiller, Derek affil: Rethink Priorities, 51 Stratford Rd, Apartment B5, Brooklyn, NY, USA su: Consciousness Language models Artificial intelligence Graphics processing units Self Conscious automata Cognition sug: subj: Consciousness Language models Artificial intelligence Graphics processing units Self Conscious automata Cognition keyword: Computationalism, Functionalism, Interweaving, Personal identity, Consciousness ab: Some of the technical details of the implementation of modern AI systems raise novel questions about computational functionalism. In particular, GPU clusters processing large language models often interweave the computations for many different chat responses. If the computations underlying these language models were to give rise to consciousness when run in isolation, it is not clear what to make of their status when they are interwoven. This paper draws on debates in the personal identity literature to present two alternative options, one in which many minds can be interwoven in one GPU cluster, and one on which at most a single mind can exist. Each position is coherent and it is not clear how to resolve the central issues. This is likely to be a source of further uncertainty about consciousness in production AI setups. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y dt: @attributes: year: 2025 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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