Comment by ben_w

> The main computer does not make choices stochastically and always understands what people ask it.

The mechanism is never explained, but no, it doesn't always understand correctly — and neither does Data. If hologram-Moriarty is sentient (is he?), then the capability likely exceeds what current LLMs can do, but the cause of the creation is definitely a misunderstanding.

Even the episode where that happens, the script for Dr. Pulaski leading up to Moriarty's IQ boost was exactly the same arguments used against LLMs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pYDy7vsCj8

(Common trope in that era being that computers (including Data) are too literal, so there was also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiIlJaSDPaA)

Similar with every time the crew work iteratively to create something in the holodeck. And, of course: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srO9D8B6dH4

> I do not think that resembles the current crop of LLMs. On voyager the ships computer is some kind of biological computing entity that they eventually give up on as a story topic but there is an episode where the bio computing gel packs get sick.

"Take the cheese to sickbay" is one of my favourite lines from that series.

> But is minuet?

I would say the character was a puppet, with the Bynars pulling the strings, because the holo-character was immediately seen as lacking personhood the moment they stopped fiddling with the computer.

Vic Fontaine was more ambiguous in that regard. Knew he was "a lightbulb", but (acted like) he wanted to remain within that reality in a way that to me felt like he was *programmed* to respond as if the sim around him was the only reality that mattered rather than having free will in that regard.

(But who has total free will? Humans are to holograms as Q is to humans, and the main cast were also written to reject "gifts" from Riker that time he briefly became a Q).

The villagers of Fair Haven were, I think, not supposed to be sentient (from the POV of the crew), but were from the POV of the writers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Haven_(Star_Trek:_Voyager... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_Folk_(Star_Trek:_Voyage...

> does eqtransformer have awareness?

There's too many different definitions for a single answer.

We don't know what part of our own brains gives us the sensation of our own existence; and even if we did, we wouldn't know if it was the only mechanism to do so.

To paraphrase your own words:

At what point does chemical pipelines doing some kind of stochastic transformation and electrochemical integration of sensory input become an individual that presents a desire for autonomy like data or the doctor?

I don't know. Like you, I'd say:

> I think there’s lots of questions here to answer and I don’t know the answers to them.