Nature commentary argues AI systems should be presumed not conscious

In a Nature commentary, Anil Seth, Ned Block and Giulio Tononi argue that AI systems should be assumed not to be conscious, according to The Decoder's report.

The authors reject computational functionalism, the view that running the right computations is enough for consciousness, and say that wrongly attributing consciousness to AI is more likely than wrongly denying it.

The commentary also warns that claims about AI welfare divert attention and resources from beings that can actually feel. It argues that the brain-as-computer metaphor misleads the debate about machine minds.