Artificial-intelligence systems such as large language models (LLMs) can exhibit behaviour that seems strikingly intelligent. This has led many people, including some experts, to wonder whether these systems could have some form of consciousness — the capacity for subjective experience. However, we think that existing AI systems are not conscious, and that, along current trajectories of development, they are not likely to become conscious. Greater clarity about whether AI could become consciousness will be crucial as society grapples with the challenges posed by this increasingly powerful technology.
If we wanted to compare LLMs to actual intelligence, we might say it’s like the voice in your head. It doesn’t solve math problems, or express emotions as art, or plan your motion to climb a ladder; it merely surfaces these things in a way that is observable across your conscious mind and communicable to others.
Some people don’t know that their consciousness is more complicated than a linear thread of words, so the idea that some other linear thread of words might be conscious is sincerely plausible to them.