Could robots be phenomenally conscious?

Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 17 (3):579-590 (2018)
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Abstract

In a recent book (Tye 2017), Michael Tye argues that we have reason to attribute phenomenal consciousness to functionally similar robots like commander Data of Star Trek. He relies on a kind of inference to the best explanation – ‘Newton’s Rule’, as he calls it. I will argue that Tye’s liberal view of consciousness attribution fails for two reasons. First, it leads into an inconsistency in consciousness attributions. Second, and even more importantly, it fails because ceteris is not paribus. The big, categorical difference in history between Data-like robots on the one hand and human beings on the other hand defeats the ceteris paribus assumption, which can be seen by various considerations. So the inference rule cannot be applied. We should not attribute phenomenal consciousness to robots like Data.

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Citations of this work

Understanding Sophia? On human interaction with artificial agents.Thomas Fuchs - 2024 - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 23 (1):21-42.

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On a confusion about a function of consciousness.Ned Block - 1995 - Brain and Behavioral Sciences 18 (2):227-–247.
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The teleological notion of 'function'.Karen Neander - 1991 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 69 (4):454 – 468.

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