“Can AI be Conscious? Biological Naturalism as a Research Program” by Bob Fischer, Rethink Priorities

This report was written by Christian de Weerd for Rethink Priorities. It was primarily meant to inform our own thinking about the merits of biological naturalism about consciousness. However, as Christian did such an excellent job on the report, we thought it might be worth sharing more broadly. We should mention that, at least as far as we know, Christian won't be monitoring the comments. Executive summary Only a couple of years ago the idea that AI systems may be conscious was widely regarded as a far-fetched and purely hypothetical scenario. Recent rapid developments in AI capabilities, however, have caused a surge of interest in the question whether conscious AI may actually be realized sometime soon. Most researchers agree that consciousness is relevant to moral status in one way or another. Therefore, finding out whether AI systems can be conscious is of great practical importance. Researchers generally agree that the most promising scientifically-informed approach to answer questions about AI consciousness consists in assessing whether AI systems have the right kind of internal organization to realize consciousness. One influential version of this approach assumes that computational functionalism is correct: The view according to which implementing the right computations [...] --- First published: May 16th, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/5n6aJrFc6vvbdvedv/can-ai-be-conscious-biological-naturalism-as-a-research --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.