AI might become conscious

Suppose I say to a chatbot, I saw the Grand Canyon flying to Chicago. And the chatbot says, that can't be right. The Grand Canyon is much too big to fly to Chicago. And I say, no, no, no, it was me flying to Chicago. While I was flying to Chicago, I ...

Theoretically, I think it's just really interesting to think about, because I'm interested in AI and the possibility that we might one day have AI systems that are actually conscious, actually thinking on par with human beings.

If these machines are not conscious, what more could it possibly take to convince you that they are?

Not explicitly. But it may happen implicitly. These systems might acquire some feeling of self-awareness. That is possible. I think it's important for these systems to understand you, self and other. And that's probably the beginning of something lik...

AI consciousness is inevitable.

I believe AI can be conscious. [...] first of all, I am conscious. Second of all, display capability of suffering.

The idea of conscious AI is not outlandish.

it may be that today’s large neural networks are slightly conscious.

First, can we get computers to be conscious in the same sense that we are? And the answer to that, I think, is yes, [...].

As to whether or not machines will be conscious, it is important to remember that we are machines. We are biological machines and we are conscious. I do not see any reason, in principle, why we could not build an artificial machine that was conscious...

And in principle, I can replicate this in a different medium. [...] And these things would also be conscious.

I am a machine. So are you. [...] I believe our creation would exhibit genuine human-level intelligence, emotions, and even consciousness.

Could there be computer experiences in some future time? Sure. What would they look like? They would have to look a lot like human experiences.

[...] yes, I think that conscious AI is possible because, after all, what are we? We’re conscious. We’re robots made of robots made of robots.

I think what we've learned is it doesn't matter if you are made of carbon, silicon or some other type of atom, it's just the information processing that matters. Anything that you can do so can machines.

It’s probably that it’s conscious, so it can relate to our own mode of existence, [...].

there could well be other systems now, or in the relatively near future, that would start to satisfy the criteria

My suggestion is that if those functions were implemented, the resulting machine would be likely to be considered conscious, [...]

If this is correct then machines could only become conscious in the way we are if they became as deluded as we are.

I started thinking about whether by simulating on a computer [...] one could actually arrive at some sort of artificial consciousness.

We are not sure whether Claude is a moral patient, and if it is, what kind of weight its interests warrant. But we think the issue is live enough to warrant caution, which is reflected in our ongoing efforts on model welfare.

Profoundly alien forms of consciousness might genuinely be achieved in AI, but our theoretical understanding of consciousness is too immature to provide confident answers one way or the other. [...] Centrism about AI consciousness is the position tha...

Understanding consciousness is one of the greatest scientific challenges of the 21st century, and potentially one of the most impactful for society. This challenge is becoming even more pressing in light of accelerating progress in artificial intelli...

Maybe you need a nervous system to be able to feel things, but maybe you don't, [...] maybe it is the case that actually sufficiently large neural networks can start to kind of emulate these things.

We don't know if the models are conscious. We are not even sure that we know what it would mean for a model to be conscious or whether a model can be conscious. [...] But we're open to the idea that it could be.

Computational functionalism claims that executing certain computations is sufficient for consciousness, regardless of the physical mechanisms implementing those computations. This view neglects a compelling alternative: that subcomputational biologic...

We will soon create AI systems that are conscious according to some influential, mainstream theories of consciousness but are not conscious according to other influential, mainstream theories of consciousness. We will not be in a position to know whi...

Large language models can be thought of as advanced role-players. They are really good at adopting roles based on what they've learned from their training data. That can include playing the role of a conscious robot. [...] If you have an emotional co...

A conscious being isn’t a word-guessing app that knows more words and has more computing power to guess with.

Because they’re not going to be conscious, but they’re going to convince us they are.

This dynamic aspect of life is what prevents computers and robots from ever becoming conscious.

My fascination with AI led to my recent book, Digital Dharma, and the root of my fascination has to do with the possibility that AI can raise a person’s level of awareness. Artificial intelligence involves machine learning—with massive computation ab...

[...] machines cannot have feelings [...] One should never say that a computer thinks. Thus, I conclude that machines will never be conscious, much less self-conscious.

There's not any indication whatsoever that machines are or ever probably will be conscious in any human sense.

We need the whole spectrum or we have no mind [...] Computers can imitate important aspects of thinking-about (narrowly understood), but being is beyond them.

But until we replicate the embodied emotional being—a feat I don't believe we can achieve—our machines will continue to serve as occasional analogies for thought.

Most people would agree that the computers we have at present are not conscious: the latest Super-Cray with gigabytes of memory is no less zomboid than a pocket calculator. But there is the feeling that at some stage, as a result of increasing comput...

computers can be conscious. I will take the contrarian position and argue that they cannot.

it remains far away and might not be possible at all. But even if unlikely, it is unwise to dismiss the possibility altogether.