"The question of whether computers can think is about as interesting as the question whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra.

That an LLM does not need to think to produce the output we want seems fairly uncontroversial. However, a statement like “LLMs may think, just not in the same way humans think, to produce the output we want” is problematic.

“The same way humans think” is the only kind of “think” that matters, for all intents and purposes. If we cannot define what it specifically is—because it loops us immediately back to the definition of consciousness et al.—the most precise definition of it will have to be along the lines of “the sort of thing that goes on in human minds”.

The question is if it’s worth all the money and resources if it’s not thinking at all so it’s not a way to AGI.

Would you invest so much in a bunch of if-then-else lists?