Could a Robot Be Conscious? Some Lessons from Philosophy

Abstract

In this chapter, the question whether robots could be conscious is evaluated from a philosophical perspective. The position taken is that the human being is the indispensable locus of ethical discovery. Questions concerning what we ought to do as morally equipped agents subject to normative guidance largely depend on our synchronically and diachronically varying answers to the question of “who we are.” It is argued here, that robots are not conscious and could not be conscious, where consciousness is understood as a systemic feature of the animal-environment relationship. It is suggested, that ethical reflection yields the result that we ought not to produce cerebral organoids implanted in a robotic “body.”

Feminism of Survival: Becoming a Feminist in the Daegu-Kyungpook Region

“…A considerable amount of research posits that these state-of-theart AI models lack 'consciousness' and, arguably, should not acquire it. Nevertheless, there is still significant potential for these models to evolve towards mimicking human-like consciousness within the framework of artificial "intelligence" [Bender and Koller, 2020, Singer, 2021, Dehaene et al, 2021, Gabriel, 2021 Despite the intrigue and controversy surrounding these topics, we will not delve deeper into them here.…”

Robots and AI as Legal Subjects? Disentangling the Ontological and Functional Perspective

“…Whether advanced robots and AI applications (henceforth, RAI) are, should, and eventually will be considered as “subjects” rather than mere “objects” is a question that has strongly characterized the social, philosophical, and legal debate since Solum’s seminar article on “Legal Personhood for Artificial Intelligence” ( Solum, 1992 ), and arguably even earlier ( Turing, 1950 ; Putman, 1964 ; Nagel, 1974 ; Bunge, 1977 ; Taylor, 1977 ; Searle, 1980 ; Searle, 1984 ; McNally and Inayatullah, 1988 ). However, debates have significantly intensified over the last two decades, with interest in both the scientific and non-academic circles raising every time a new technology rolls out (e.g., autonomous cars being tested in real-life scenarios on our streets), or an outstanding socio-legal development occurs (e.g., the humanoid Sophia receiving Saudi Arabian citizenship) 1 (see, e.g., Allen et al, 2000 ; Allen et al, 2005 ; Teubner, 2006 ; Chrisley, 2008 ; Coeckelbergh, 2010 ; Koops et al, 2010 ; Gunkel, 2012 ; Basl, 2014 ; Balkin, 2015a ; Iannì and Monterossi, 2017 ; Christman, 2018 ; Gunkel, 2018 ; Nyholm, 2018 ; Pagallo, 2018b ; Santoni de Sio and van den Hoven, 2018 ; Lior, 2019 ; Loh, 2019 ; Turner, 2019 ; Wagner, 2019 ; Andreotta, 2021 ; Basl et al, 2020 ; Bennett and Daly, 2020 ; Dignum, 2020 ; Gunkel, 2020 ; Kingwell, 2020 ; Osborne, 2020 ; Powell, 2020 ; Serafimova, 2020 ; Wheeler, 2020 ; De Pagter, 2021 ; Gabriel, 2021 ; Gogoshin, 2021 ; Gordon, 2021 ; Gunkel and Wales, 2021 ; Joshua, 2021 ; Kiršienė et al, 2021 ; Martínez and Winter 2021 ; Schröder, 2021 ; Singer, 2021 ).…”