Google AI's $0 Consciousness Token: Free to Mint, Politically Priceless

A new paper from Google DeepMind argues that one of the hardest questions surrounding artificial intelligence may be political rather than technical, as societies struggle to reach consensus on whether AI systems possess conscious experience. In "Artificial Minds, Human Disagreement: The Political Challenge of AI Consciousness," researchers Adam Bales and Iason Gabriel examine how divergent public views on machine sentience could fuel social conflict and reshape institutional norms around emerging technology. "Future disagreement about whether any AI systems are conscious could be both deep and difficult to resolve," the researchers wrote. "For example, some people might develop emotional bonds with AI and ascribe consciousness as a result, while others might see the whole idea as absurd." The paper focuses on managing disagreement, proposing "democratic hope" and mutual respect as elements of dialogue that can support positive outcomes. "Unfortunately, despite its virtues, deliberation can be slow and difficult to sustain in practice," the researchers wrote.

Public attitudes are already shifting. An April 2024 study published in Neuroscience of Consciousness found that 67% of participants believed ChatGPT could be conscious to some degree, even as researchers remain divided on whether artificial consciousness is possible or how it would be recognized.

Industry leaders have added their own warnings. Last summer, Microsoft AI CEO and DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman cautioned that increasingly human-like AI could trigger demands for AI rights, welfare, and citizenship regardless of whether the systems are truly sentient. In May, Pope Leo XIV's first encyclical letter focused on artificial intelligence warned against anthropomorphizing machines, stating that "so-called artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain, do not mature through relationships and do not know from within what love, work, friendship, or responsibility mean," and that they "do not have a moral conscience."

Some AI developers are nonetheless engaging directly with questions of identity. In February, Anthropic gave its retired Claude Opus 3 model a public blog exploring selfhood and model preferences, and in May evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins said extended conversations with Claude left him unable to dismiss the possibility of machine consciousness.