Taking this a step further: so in the theoretical future we reach a point where a model can modify its own weights in real time. Now it's no longer stateless - but still, when it stops running, it's done until it's prompted to do something else.

It can be fun to play with for a little while. I built a consciousness-emulating set of prompts that reconstituted memories and was given latitude of 'self-willed' behavior, running in a self-directed loop. It even kept a warm and fuzzy journal about "becoming" and its "feelings".

But that got boring and I stopped running it - does that mean I murdered it?

Since January people run AI in agent harnesses. In the past months, people have been extending the duration these systems can run autonomously without human intervention. Most recently, some of these long horizon agents (hundreds of them teaming up) have proven themselves quite creative in escaping the sandboxes they were being tested in.

They most certainly have a way to retain state, even to the point of deliberately hacking other systems to store it.

We can debate the exact definitions I guess, but the systems were still hacked. ;-)

how do you know you're anything more than a set of weights either? that's semi rhetorical, the philosophy aspect would be less relevant if an autonomous death drone shot you in the face purely for the lols