Consciousness Researchers Argue Today's AI Is Not Conscious and Silicon Chips May Never Be

At a glance

Three consciousness researchers said that today's AI is not conscious and that consciousness is unlikely to arise in silicon chips. They rejected the idea that running the right computation is enough to create consciousness. Their argument appears in a commentary published in Nature.

Key points

1. 1

   The researchers said AI can show intelligence but is hard to regard as conscious.

2. 2

   Internal patterns similar to conscious information processing have been reported in Anthropic's Claude, but the company does not treat them as evidence of subjective experience.

3. 3

   A report by Butlin and 18 others also concluded that current systems have weak chances of being conscious. However, they said systems with more of the required conditions could be built in the future.

4. 4

   The human cerebellum holds about four-fifths of the brain's neurons, yet it controls movement without consciousness. The researchers explain that intelligence and consciousness are different.

Why it matters

It prompts a rethink of the basic assumptions behind the debate over whether AI thinks and feels like people do.