LLMs Won’t Lead to Consciousness – Why i think Simulating Biological Evolution Is the Key to True Digital Life

I don’t think LLM technologies will ever lead to something akin to human consciousness. They are designed to mimic intelligence, not to be intelligent. While they’re impressive at replicating human-like responses, they lack the core attributes of consciousness: subjective experience, awareness, and understanding. Instead of trying to artificially recreate the outputs of human intelligence, I believe the path to true digital life and consciousness lies in replicating the process that created it—namely, biological evolution.

Take something like Lenia as an example. It shows how complex, lifelike behaviors can emerge from simple systems when they follow dynamic rules of interaction. Imagine scaling this up to simulate the billions of years of evolution that shaped life on Earth. By starting with digital ‘primitives’—basic units that follow simple rules—we might witness the gradual emergence of increasingly complex systems: from basic responses to stimuli, to memory, learning, and eventually self-awareness.

This approach is fundamentally different from LLMs. It wouldn’t just copy human behaviors; it would allow new forms of intelligence to evolve naturally, based on their own ‘digital biology.’ Of course, this would be a massive undertaking, requiring immense computational power and a deeper understanding of what makes consciousness tick. But to me, this seems like a more authentic and promising path toward creating something truly alive in the digital realm.