Science RETHINKING CONSCIOUSNESS: COULD EVERYTHING FROM ANIMALS TO AI BE AWARE?

Traditionally, consciousness has been treated as an exclusive club. Humans are unquestionably members. Most animals are often assumed to be on the outside. Plants, fungi, bacteria, and machines are typically regarded as little more than biological or mechanical systems lacking any real awareness.

However, a recent review published in Frontiers in Psychology argues that science could be asking the wrong questions and making incorrect assumptions about consciousness.

Dr. Jeff Sebo, a philosopher and professor of environmental studies and bioethics at New York University, explores an intriguing issue in modern science and philosophy: what kinds of beings should we assume are conscious before definitive proof exists.

Rather than focusing only on humans or familiar animals, Dr. Sebo’s analysis examines whether plants, fungi, bacteria, AI systems, robots, and perhaps even all matter itself could possess some form of subjective experience.

While it may sound like a mere philosophical debate, perceptions of what qualifies as consciousness influence a wide range of fields, from biomedical research to the ethical principles guiding humanity’s relationship with nature and emerging technologies.

https://thedebrief.org/rethinking-consciousness-could-everything-from-animals-to-ai-be-aware/

I think most animals are definitely conscious. For LLMs, the LLM itself is clearly not conscious as it's just an input-output box with no internal-state. If anything would be conscious, it would be the conversation we have with the bot. But that's just something we can copy, delete, pause easily.

It feels strange to speak about consciousness about such a simple input-output machine + a file we can copy & paste easily. There does not seem to be a unique "self" in this picture that one could call "self-aware"