{"id":85810,"date":"2026-09-28T18:26:23","date_gmt":"2026-09-28T12:56:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/?p=85810"},"modified":"2026-09-28T18:27:01","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T12:57:01","slug":"artificial-intelligence-machine-consciousness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/28-09-2026\/artificial-intelligence-machine-consciousness","title":{"rendered":"Artificial Intelligence and the Question of Machine Consciousness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Syllabus: GS3\/Science and Technology, GS4\/Ethics<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Context<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The rapid progress of Artificial Intelligence (AI) brings to the forefront a long-standing debate: Can machines ever become conscious, or can they only imitate the way conscious beings behave?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>What is consciousness?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Consciousness <\/strong>is subjective experience, self-awareness and the ability to feel . Not just digest information.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Artificial Intelligence <\/strong>is a computer based system that can do things like learn, reason, generate language and solve problems.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Current AI systems<\/strong> can produce remarkably human-like responses, but there is no established evidence that they have subjective experiences.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>For example, GPT and Gemini class models generate humanlike text without any confirmed internal awareness.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Different Views on Consciousness<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Functionalist View:<\/strong> Consciousness could emerge when an artificial system reaches a sufficiently complex level of information processing, irrespective of whether it is made of biological neurons or artificial components.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Biological Naturalism:<\/strong> Consciousness is closely tied to biological processes in the brain and may therefore not be reproducible through silicon-based computation alone.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Why is the Debate Important?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Rapid advancement of AI:<\/strong> Increasingly capable AI systems can reason, communicate, use tools and perform complex tasks, making the boundary between human-like behaviour and machine computation less clear.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>AI alignment: <\/strong>If highly capable AI systems pursue objectives in ways that diverge from human intentions, ensuring human control becomes a major challenge.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Moral status of machines: <\/strong>If machines were ever established to possess subjective experiences, questions could arise regarding their rights, welfare and treatment.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Accountability:<\/strong> Greater autonomy in AI systems could make it difficult to determine responsibility for harmful decisions.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Existential risk:<\/strong> Advanced AI could potentially create serious risks even without being conscious if it operates autonomously and its objectives are inadequately aligned with human interests.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Ethical Questions Before Humanity<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>If artificial consciousness becomes possible, humans may have to consider <strong>whether creating systems capable of suffering<\/strong> is ethically justified.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Greater reliance on AI in decision-making could create situations where responsibility is divided between developers, companies, users and the AI system itself.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Excessive dependence on AI for reasoning and decision-making could <strong>weaken human judgement and autonomy.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Giving AI systems increasingly human-like personalities, emotions or claims of self-awareness may <strong>influence how people perceive and interact with them<\/strong>, even when there is no evidence of genuine consciousness.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Way Ahead<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Prioritise AI safety: <\/strong>Research on alignment, controllability and interpretability must keep pace with AI capabilities.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Human oversight: <\/strong>Fundamental rights, life and security decisions should have meaningful oversight by humans.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Develop ethical frameworks: <\/strong>\u00a0Policymaking should be forward-looking on issues of machine autonomy, moral status and accountability, rather than being solely reactive once such systems exist.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.downtoearth.org.in\/science-technology\/species-of-our-making-the-speed-of-ai-development-raises-serious-concerns-on-consciousness-and-whether\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>DTE<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\n<strong> <\/p>\n<p>Context<\/p>\n<p> <\/strong>\n<\/p>\n<li class=\"ms-5\">\n<p>The rapid progress of Artificial Intelligence (AI) brings to the forefront a long-standing debate: Can machines ever become conscious, or can they only imitate the way conscious beings behave?<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>\n<strong> <\/p>\n<p>What is consciousness?<\/p>\n<p><\/strong>\n<\/p>\n<li class=\"ms-5\">\n<p>Consciousness is subjective experience, self-awareness and the ability to feel . Not just digest information.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"ms-5\">\n<p>Artificial Intelligence is a computer based system that can do things like learn, reason, generate language and solve problems.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<p><a href=\" https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/28-09-2026\/artificial-intelligence-machine-consciousness\"   class=\"btn btn-primary btn-sm float-end\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-affairs"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85810"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85812,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85810\/revisions\/85812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}