Susan Schneider will discuss some of the implications of designing AI systems that might exhibit some form of consciousness, including the ethical challenges of "AI zombies," which behave as if conscious but lack subjective experience. The Turing Test could be extended to evaluate an AI's ability to engage in philosophical discussions on metaphysics and existence. An AI could be tested for whether it exhibits the high levels of "integrated information" posited by Tononi, Friston, Levin and others. Ethical guidelines will need to be revised as AI systems become increasingly sophisticated and potentially sentient. 

 

References 

LeDoux J, Birch J, Andrews K, Clayton NS, Daw ND, Frith C, Lau H, Peters MA, Schneider S, Seth A, Suddendorf T. (2023) Consciousness beyond the human case. Current Biology. 2023 Aug 21;33(16):R832-40. 

St. Clair, R., Coward, L. A., & Schneider, S. (2023). Leveraging conscious and nonconscious learning for efficient AI. Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience, 17, 1090126. 

Schneider, S. (2020). How to Catch an AI Zombie. Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, 439-458.