Prospects and pitfalls for artificial consciousness

As AI continues to develop, it is natural to ask whether AI system can be not only intelligent, but also conscious. I will first consider why some people think AI might develop consciousness, identifying some biases that might lead us astray. I’ll then ask what it would take for conscious AI to be a realistic prospect, pushing back against some standard assumptions such as the notion that computation provides a sufficient basis for consciousness. I will instead make the case for taking seriously the possibility that consciousness might depend on our nature as living organisms – a form of biological naturalism. I’ll end by exploring some implications of AI that either actually is, or convincingly seems to be, conscious. If we sell our minds too cheaply to our machine creations, we not only overestimate them – we underestimate our selves.