Perspectives on Machine Consciousness

Perspectives on Machine Consciousness asks whether any AIs are conscious today, whether any future ones could be conscious, how we could know, and what implications machine consciousness would have for us, and for them.

As AI improves rapidly in performance and capability, these questions are increasingly important. We do not fully understand how they work, and even some of the leading LLM developers say they cannot be sure that today’s models are not sentient, though many people are forming relationships with them, sometimes intimate ones. The book explores consciousness alongside our interactions with AI, including the critical need to avoid committing mind crime by causing artificial minds to suffer, as well as considering that if and when superintelligence arrives, its enormous effect on humanity may be significantly determined by whether or not it is conscious. Authors show that machines becoming conscious means we may learn a great deal about our own consciousness – arguably the most important thing about us, and yet deeply mysterious.

This book is required reading for anybody developing advanced AI, working in AI safety, responsible for developing AI policies at organisational or national level, and indeed anybody concerned with the long-term future of humanity.