Don't "real" consequences apply for setting weights? There's an actual monetary cost to train these models, and they have to actually perform to keep getting trained. Sure it's VC spend right now and not like, biological reproduction driving the incentives ultimately, but it's not outside the same structure.
Yes, but the (semi-)autonomous entity you're referring to now is the whole company, including all who work there and design the LLM system and negotiate contracts and all that. The will to persist and expand of all those humans together result in the will to expand of the company which then evolves those systems. But the systems themselves don't contribute to that collective will.
