GPT-4 is reported to be well-calibrated, that is values in its output layer are in good correspondence with probabilities of those outputs being correct.
So, the information about what it does and doesn't know seems to be there. I can speculate that a limited form of introspection is probably present too: the model needs to know what it will say later to output the current token. A simple example: should it output "a" or "an". To make this decision it might need to model its own state at a later point in time. Of course, I can be wrong.
But I mostly agree with you. Explicit mechanisms for memory and introspection will probably drastically reduce the need for computation power to achieve the same results and they will give rise to more abilities.
So, the information about what it does and doesn't know seems to be there. I can speculate that a limited form of introspection is probably present too: the model needs to know what it will say later to output the current token. A simple example: should it output "a" or "an". To make this decision it might need to model its own state at a later point in time. Of course, I can be wrong.
But I mostly agree with you. Explicit mechanisms for memory and introspection will probably drastically reduce the need for computation power to achieve the same results and they will give rise to more abilities.