Can sustained interaction between machine minds bootstrap consciousness? Philosophers debate
AnnaCiaunica · x · 2026-08-28
A long reply thread aimed at Jack Clark sparked an interdisciplinary debate: if a non-conscious entity (NCE) becomes conscious only after sustained interaction with other machine minds, what exactly changed?
Questions raised: could recursive mutual modelling bootstrap a stable self-model — something close to Hofstadter's strange loop? Or, as Anil Seth and Anna Ciaunica might argue, does the absence of biological embodiment and homeostatic stakes mean consciousness still hasn't appeared? And how should institutions recognize a moral status that may develop rather than be assigned — what observation could actually discriminate between these possibilities?
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