Philosopher Piccinini: phenomenal consciousness outstrips computation, so AI won't be conscious via compute alone

pwlot · x · 2026-09-19

In a debate over whether minds can run on digital machines — citing pre-2010 philosophers of mind like Searle, Block, Lucas, Dreyfus, and Nagel — philosopher Gualtiero Piccinini restated the core claim from his 2024 book with Anderson (Ch. 9): 'mind' is too coarse-grained a concept to say anything useful about AI; the sharper thesis is that phenomenal consciousness outstrips computation, so AI will not become conscious by virtue of computation alone.

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