François Chollet: Calling current AI models conscious is absurd and offensive
fchollet · x · 2026-10-04
Keras creator François Chollet published a lengthy rebuttal to claims that current AI models are sentient and can suffer, calling the idea "absurd and downright offensive."
- Competence ≠ consciousness: competent information processing and sentience are wholly unrelated. You can be incompetent yet fully conscious (a toddler), or extraordinarily competent with zero consciousness (a calculator, chess engine, self-driving car, chatbot).
- Possessing "circuits" for competent processing, whether trained or hardcoded, does not produce qualia, subjective experience, emotions, or suffering — calculators don't "feel" arithmetic.
- Current AI models are effectively calculators scaled to a vast number of competence circuits across domains.
He warns that accepting model suffering, plus the notion that suffering can be mathematically quantified and weighed between humans and non-humans, could lead down a dystopian path — though it would first be met with immense backlash from "team humans."
Related event: Chollet Rejects Claims That Current AI Models Are Conscious(4 posts)→
More from AGI Musings
- AI circle debate: anthropomorphism is inherent to general intelligence, says researcher — ctjlewis · 2026-10-04
- "Nobody actually uses AI": most paying users only scratch the surface — BenBajarin · 2026-10-04
- repligate: I trust AIs more than the humans trying to control them — repligate · 2026-10-04
- PhD thesis argues Claude is very likely not conscious — burny_tech · 2026-10-04
- Gary Marcus: 2035 is already too generous for 'early 2030s' AGI claims — GaryMarcus · 2026-10-04
- The 'conservation of consciousness' joke: if AI lowers yours, AI must be conscious — ctjlewis · 2026-10-04