Friends have been asking for my opinion on the possibility of sentient AI. And what better time to write about that than early on a morning when I’m literally losing sleep over my thoughts on the question. I happen also to be getting over a bit of a cold, which doesn’t help. But my brain seems to care more about thinking than sleeping tonight. Everyone’s talking about sentient AI right now. That’s because a Google AI engineer appears to have been fired either because of or at least simultaneous with his claims that a Google AI has become sentient. That captured some news cycles. And that, in turn, captured some imaginations and reactions. Let me start by sharing some thoughts on sentience and related words. For “sentience,” I like to go with the dictionary. Webster’s defines it as “responsive to or conscious of sense perceptions,” “aware,” or “finely sensitive in perception or feeling.” Those definitions bring up a bunch of other issues. For the first, what does it mean to be responsive or conscious? And what does it mean to have sense perception? I’d say that anything that can react to its environment, even a flush toilet, demonstrates sense perception. And that reaction is at least a demonstration of responsiveness, whether or not its consciousness. Consciousness is highly problematic, insofar as demonstration is concerned. For example, you can’t prove that I’m conscious. Maybe I’m a zombie, with highly attuned responses to environmental stimuli. Maybe everyone but you is a figment of your imagination. For the second definition, I think we should take into consideration the dictionary definition of “aware.” Webster’s says it’s “having or showing realization, perception, or knowledge.” To show something is quite different than to have something. I can show you that which appears to you to be realization, perception, or knowledge without you being able to prove that I have them. The third definition, like the first two, makes room for flush toilets and hypothetical zombies. One need not be conscious of feeling to be responsive in perception. One need not have realization to show perception. Likewise, one may be finely sensitive in perception without feeling. This ambiguity in the definition of “sentience” fuels a lot of the debate over whether Google’s AI is sentient. If we were to agree that sentience requires only the ability to react to an environment, most of us would probably agree that the AI is sentient. But this is also probably a weaker sense of sentience than most people have in mind when they argue the topic. Could Google’s AI be sentient in the stronger sense? Could it be conscious of feelings? As I’ve already pointed out, we have a hard enough time answering this question with certainty for other humans. So answering this question for other entities, especially to the extent that their anatomies and behaviors differ from our own, is even more challenging. The temptation is just to conclude, quickly, that anything dissimilar to me cannot be conscious. But where and why do we draw the line? At least historically, if not presently, some humans have considered other races of humans to be less conscious. And some consider non-human animals to be less conscious or altogether unconscious. What about plants? Are they conscious? Can fungi or bacteria or viruses be conscious? What about apparently inanimate objects? Personally, I’m inclined toward something like a weak panpsychism. From this perspective, everything is conscious in at least a weak sense, even a rock. No. I don’t think the rock is conscious like I am conscious, and like I assume you to be conscious. But I do imagine that it might “feel” like something to be a rock. I imagine that the rock may have something loosely analogous to consciousness that’s quite alien to anything that you or I feel. I won’t offer a long account or defense of panpsychism here. Suffice it to say that it’s an ancient and enduring idea, among both philosophies and religions. Notably, ...