Do you think AI is, or could become, conscious?
I think AI might one day emulate consciousness to a high level of accuracy, but that wouldn’t mean it would actually be conscious.
This article mentions a Google engineer who “argued that AI chatbots could feel things and potentially suffer”. But surely in order to “feel things” you would need a nervous system right? When you feel pain from touching something very hot, it’s your nerves that are sending those pain signals to your brain… right?
This is absolutely the main problem, the only “definition” we have is “I think therefore I am”, but that only works subjectively.
We have no way currently to prove consciousness in an AI. And as you say, we don’t even have a solid definition commonly agreed upon.
I believe we will achieve consciousness on a human level in AI within a decade.
I also believe consciousness is a gradual thing, and just because animals aren’t as smart as we are, doesn’t mean they aren’t “conscious”.
But with AI things are a bit reversed, because AI became smart first, and will only get conscious later.
Have you ever seen 2001 A Space Odyssey? This grift never ends.