Can We Think Machines Are Conscious? A Survey of Philosophical Problems Facing the Attribution of Consciousness to Machines

The paper examines whether it is possible to justifiably attribute consciousness to artificial intelligent systems. It reviews the history of AI, identifies the most promising research program for machine consciousness, and evaluates three methods for knowing if a machine is conscious: sufficient organizational similarity to human thinkers, inference to the best explanation, and the idea that panpsychism (everything is conscious) would automatically grant consciousness to AI. The author argues that all three methods are inadequate because each faces serious philosophical problems.

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Abstract

In this paper, I’ll examine whether we could be justified in attributing consciousness to artificial intelligent systems. First, I’ll give a brief history of the concept of artificial intelligence (AI) and get clear on the terms I’ll be using. Second, I’ll briefly review the kinds of AI programs on offer today, identifying which research program I think provides the best candidate for machine consciousness. Lastly, I’ll consider the three most plausible ways of knowing whether a machine is conscious: (1) an AI demonstrates a sufficient level of organizational similarity to that of a human thinker, (2) an inference to the best explanation, and (3) what I call “punting to panpsychism”, i.e., the idea that if everything is conscious, then we get machine consciousness in AI for free. However, I argue that all three of these methods for attributing machine consciousness are inadequate since they each face serious philosophical problems which I will survey and specifically tailor to each method.