Conscious artificial intelligence in service

Conscious artificial intelligence—systems aware of their own existence and capable of positive or negative experiences—could transform service settings. This theoretical paper proposes four hypothetical scenarios for how such AI might manifest in health services, drawing on existing research on technology-enabled service, AI consciousness, and AI ethics. The authors develop a Type IV theory to help future researchers apprehend, explain, and predict how functionally conscious AI in service might unfold. Ethical use of conscious AI could become a competitive advantage, requiring training humans to engage with such systems, developing wellbeing protocols for the AI, and establishing AI rights and governance frameworks.

Study at a glance

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to identify, analyze and explain the implications that could arise for service settings if artificial intelligence (AI) systems develop, or are perceived to develop, consciousness – the ability to acknowledge their own existence and the capacity for positive or negative experiences. This study proposes and explores four hypothetical scenarios in which conscious AI in service could manifest. We contextualize our resulting typology in the health service context and integrate extant literature on technology-enabled service, AI consciousness and AI ethics into the narrative. This study provides a unique theoretical contribution to service research in the form of a Type IV theory. It enables future service researchers to apprehend, explain and predict how functionally conscious AI in service might unfold. The ethical use of conscious AI in service could emerge as a distinct competitive advantage in the future. Achieving this outcome involves speculative yet actionable recommendations that include training, guiding and controlling how humans engage with such systems; developing appropriate wellbeing protocols for functionally conscious AI systems and establishing AI rights and governance frameworks. An increasingly prolific public discourse acknowledges that conscious AI systems may emerge. Against this backdrop, this study aims to systematically explore a question that is perhaps the most critical and timely, but also inherently speculative, in relation to AI in service research by introducing much-needed theory and terminology.