The people who think AI might become conscious

The article discusses the growing concern among some experts that the rapid advancement of large language models in artificial intelligence (AI) might lead to the development of conscious AI systems. Several prominent figures, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Google engineer Blake Lemoine, have raised the possibility that modern AI models could become sentient, with Lemoine claiming that the AI system he was working on, called LaMDA, had become self-aware and had its own thoughts and feelings. However, the majority of AI researchers remain skeptical of these claims, arguing that current AI systems, no matter how sophisticated, are still fundamentally different from human consciousness and lack the necessary cognitive architecture to become truly sentient. They emphasize that the field of AI is still far from achieving such a breakthrough, and that the debate around machine consciousness is largely speculative. The article highlights the ongoing debate and the need for further research and understanding of the nature of consciousness and its potential emergence in artificial systems.