Is Artificial Intelligence Phenomenally Conscious: A Synthesis of the Literature

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly improving its ability to mimic human cognitive functions.This raises the following question: Could sophisticated intelligence systems have subjective experience and possess phenomenal consciousness?This literature review aims to evaluate proposed theoretical and observational indicators to assess the current consciousness status of AI.The review explicitly differentiates intelligence and consciousness, and the specific lens of focus is categorizing AI as having access consciousness and/or phenomenal consciousness.A multitude of academic publications and theoretical frameworks of different perspectives on AI-consciousness were analyzed.Results from the literature search are consistent with AI resembling access consciousness, with there being a lack of definitive evidence for phenomenal consciousness.This absence of observational evidence is largely due to the difficulty of objectively measuring AI's consciousness from the third-person perspective.The literature review concludes that AI has characteristics of access consciousness, but remains inconclusive regarding phenomenal consciousness because its existence in artificial systems has not yet been empirically proven.