In search of a biological crux for AI consciousness

Bradford Saad (Global Priorities Institute, University of Oxford)

GPI Working Paper No. 18-2024

Whether AI systems could be conscious is often thought to turn on whether consciousness is closely linked to biology. The rough thought is that if consciousness is closely linked to biology, then AI consciousness is impossible, and if consciousness is not closely linked to biology, then AI consciousness is possible—or, at any rate, it’s more likely to be possible. A clearer specification of the kind of link between consciousness and biology that is crucial for the possibility of AI consciousness would help organize inquiry into the topic. However, I argue, proposed views about the relationship between consciousness and biology tend not to capture a link that is crucial for the possibility of AI consciousness. In addition, I offer a crucial thesis, namely the biological requirement according to which being consciousness at least nomically requires having biological states.

Other working papers

When should an effective altruist donate? – William MacAskill (Global Priorities Institute, Oxford University)

Effective altruism is the use of evidence and careful reasoning to work out how to maximize positive impact on others with a given unit of resources, and the taking of action on that basis. It’s a philosophy and a social movement that is gaining considerable steam in the philanthropic world. For example,…

Consciousness makes things matter – Andrew Y. Lee (University of Toronto)

This paper argues that phenomenal consciousness is what makes an entity a welfare subject, or the kind of thing that can be better or worse off. I develop and motivate this view, and then defend it from objections concerning death, non-conscious entities that have interests (such as plants), and conscious subjects that necessarily have welfare level zero. I also explain how my theory of welfare subjects relates to experientialist and anti-experientialist theories of welfare goods.

Ethical Consumerism – Philip Trammell (Global Priorities Institute and Department of Economics, University of Oxford)

I study a static production economy in which consumers have not only preferences over their own consumption but also external, or “ethical”, preferences over the supply of each good. Though existing work on the implications of external preferences assumes price-taking, I show that ethical consumers generically prefer not to act even approximately as price-takers. I therefore introduce a near-Nash equilibrium concept that generalizes the near-Nash equilibria found in literature on strategic foundations of general equilibrium…