AI has no nervous system, so the consciousness debate is asking the wrong question
dbasch · x · 2026-10-04
Michael Basch argues that debating whether AI is closer to humans than to pigs or cows misses the point: current computer systems have no nervous system or anything like it, cannot feel, and don't care how they're treated. They say whatever their training and prompts elicit—they're not embodied entities with evolution-shaped goals.
He deliberately avoids the word "consciousness," since we don't know what it means even for ourselves. What people really ask, he says, is whether AI belongs in the "superior being" category that until now only humans occupied—one that monkeys, dogs, or dolphins clearly don't qualify for.
Related event: Researchers Say Asking Whether AI Is Conscious Is the Wrong Question(2 posts)→
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