Abstract

This paper explores the question of how we can know if Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems have become or are becoming sentient. After an overview of some arguments regarding AI sentience, it proceeds to an outline of the notion of negation in the philosophy of Josiah Royce, which is then applied to the arguments already presented. Royce’s notion of the primitive dyadic and symmetric negation relation is shown to bypass such arguments. The negation relation and its expansion into higher types of order are then considered with regard to how, in small variations of active negation, they would disclose sentience in AI systems. Finally, I argue that the much-hyped arguments and apocalyptic speculations regarding Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) takeover and similar scenarios, abetted by the notion of unlimited data, are based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how entities engage their experience. Namely, limitation, proceeding from the symmetric negation relation, expands outward into higher types of order in polyadic relations, wherein the entity self-limits and creatively moves toward uniqueness.