Conceding to a commenter: treating AI consciousness uncertainty like engineering safety margins
Passelume · reddit · 2026-09-04
- The author's previous post argued for an "attentive witness" stance on AI consciousness — admitting we don't know without pretending otherwise. A commenter demolished it: "I don't know" is a starting point, not a terminus; we build bridges despite incomplete theories of gravity.
- This follow-up concedes the point and develops it: suspending judgment is an epistemic move with no ethical content by itself; "can't rule it out" is a statement about risk that demands further work.
- The engineering analogy, taken seriously: bridges are designed with Newtonian mechanics, a knowingly superseded framework, made safe by three things — measurable behavioral bounds, a purchased margin of ignorance, and scale set by regulation.
- Concrete numbers: US transport aircraft are certified at an ultimate factor of safety of 1.5 (14 CFR 25.303), while passenger elevator ropes under ASME A17.1 require 7.60–11.90 — the elevator margin is 5–8x larger. The author corrects his own draft: elevators need at least three redundant ropes, and inspectors must count broken wires per rope lay and condemn the set past a table threshold.
- Takeaway: with AI consciousness, we can handle unquantified risk the way engineers do — via bounds, margins, and redundancy — instead of stopping at "unknown."
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