Comment by Alexander Lerchner

Computational functionalism dominates current debates on AI consciousness. This is the hypothesis that subjective experience emerges entirely from abstract causal topology, regardless of the underlying physical substrate. We argue this view fundamentally mischaracterizes how physics relates to information. We call this mistake the Abstraction Fallacy. [...] Highly capable artificial general intelligence does not inherently create a novel moral patient but rather a sophisticated non-sentient tool. Unverified source (2026)