Should AI be treated like a human? A new paper published this week has an answer
A new paper published in Nature argues that AI is not conscious and that intelligence should not be conflated with consciousness. The article explores the ethical implications of granting rights to AI if it were ever considered a conscious being.
Why it matters
As AI capabilities grow, the debate over whether machines deserve legal or moral rights becomes increasingly relevant to technology policy and ethics.
“Hello, is there anybody in there?” Thus begins the iconic Pink Floyd song "Comfortably Numb." I posed the same question to Google Gemini, and pat came the response: “Were you poking fun at the nature of talking to an AI, or were you just testing if I'd pick up on the lyric right away?”I was looking for a relatable hook to start this article, which aims to address a pervasive question with no easy answer: can a bunch of zeroes and ones come together to create consciousness? If that doesn’t seem rational, why is it more acceptable to say, as English Podcaster Alex O’Connor asked, that a bunch of atoms came together to become brains?Whether we prove or accept AI as conscious has real-world implications.
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