Are LLMs persisting interlocutors?

In a recent paper, Jonathan Birch presents what he calls a Centrist Manifesto[1] for AI consciousness. He identifies two challenges:Millions of users will soon misattribute consciousness to AI systems on the basis of a persisting interlocutor illusion.Alien forms of consciousness may genuinely be present in LLMs and our current techniques for detecting consciousness are too immature to provide a confident answer.Birch’s paper is excellent and you should read it if you haven’t had a chance. His defence of 2) is probably the most clear-headed, balanced presentation that I’ve read so far in the AI consciousness discourse.In this article, I want to challenge his key claim that underpins 1): namely, that LLMs cannot be persisting interlocutors. Along the way, we’ll talk about personal identity and what, if anything, personal identity would mean for an LLM.Persisting InterlocutorsAt the start of Section 4, Birch writes the following:At present, many users seem to misunderstand the true nature of their interactions with chatbots in significant ways. Chatbots generate a powerful illusion of a companion, assistant, or partner being present throughout a conversation. I call this the persisting interlocutor illusion. “Interlocutor” is just a term for the being with whom you feel you’re interacting: an assistant, a companion, a romantic partner, and so on.To be clear, I have no doubt that users will often engage with chatbots in a way that anthropomorphises or humanises their traits. There is no Cartesian ego sitting inside the computer tapping away at the keys, even if conversations with LLMs can sometimes feel this way! But in this section Birch wants something stronger to support his conclusion. Consider the concluding sentence of the section (emphasis mine):In short, chatbots create a persisting interlocutor illusion. There is no friend. There is no romantic partner. The illusion is often powerful, but there is no plausible theory of personal identity that could support an