Seventy-five years after Alan Turing asked whether machines could think, artificial intelligence is forcing humanity to revisit the question of consciousness.
As AI systems become increasingly capable, concerns are growing over whether they could evolve beyond human control and pose an existential threat.
Experts remain divided on whether machines can ever become conscious, with some warning of a future “silicon species” while others argue that consciousness may depend on biological systems.
The debate raises a deeper question: are humans creating a new form of intelligence without fully understanding the consequences?
Can machines think?” Alan Turing, an English mathematician and logician asked in his 1950 essay, “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”. This essay is considered to be the foundational philosophical articulation of artificial intelligence (AI), much before the term was formulated. In it, Turing says the question is “too meaningless to deserve discussion.”
“Nevertheless,” he continues, “I believe that at the end of the century the use of words and general educated opinion will have altered so much that one will be able to speak of machines thinking without expecting to be contradicted. I believe further that no useful purpose is served by concealing these beliefs.”
After 75 years of Turing’s essay, AI has evolved to be the new dna, fundamentally changing the machines scripted and coded by humans. Its advancement and adaptation is so fast that now there is serious concern over whether it would not just threaten human existence but also go out of control of its creator. In other words, AI could become conscious, just like humans. This triggers the next debate: what is “consciousness” and can machines ever gain it? AI is a technological development through which humans, for the first time, outsource their own intelligence and long-gained consciousness, without knowing the consequences. For millions of years, modern humans, Homo sapiens, were non-linguistic and non-symbolic despite having the anatomy they needed. But at a certain point in evolution, they developed language and started to script a world of own. This is broadly accepted as the birth of human consciousness. Now, humans are enabling the same evolution in machines.
Mustafa Suleyman, head of Microsoft AI, in a recent essay argued that the development of AI at the current pace and without safeguards would lead to evolution of a “silicon species” that competes with humans. Microsoft's rival firm Anthropic, he notes, is developing AI to be like humans, a “misguided” endeavour. “AIs are not conscious. They do not feel, experience, or suffer. They do not have innate preferences or underlying motivations. They are sequence completion engines, internally hollow, designed to follow instructions, and accomplish goals set by humans. If humanity is to flourish in the 21st century, that is how they must remain,” he writes, acknowledging the fear of AI going out of humans’ control.
The world got dizzy when former Anthropic scientist Evan Hubinger, said in a recent statement, “We really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans. I personally think it will be greater than 10 per cent within the next decade. I believe Anthropic is trying its best, but we do not yet have a plan to solve alignment for super-intelligence and are clearly not on track to.” Suleyman disagrees. “Whilst the science of consciousness is not settled, a growing body of evidence suggests that consciousness may be substrate dependent, meaning that it may only arise in living systems.” He adds, “Unlike biological organisms, llms have no homeostatic imperatives (the drive to survive and keep stable). They therefore lack the kind of biological substrate from which preferences, sentience and conscious experience are generally understood to arise.”
Lucius Caviola, assistant professor, Social Science of AI, Institute for Technology and Humanity, University of Cambridge, says, “Empirical research shows people are divided on this issue. When we asked 1,202 US participants whether future AI could ever become conscious, 45 per cent considered it impossible while 23 per cent thought it possible, with the rest unsure.” Irrespective of scientific uncertainty over AI gaining consciousness, the debate points to existence of fear, with reason. In the current unprecedented era of evolution, we are fighting an existential battle with a product of our own intelligence.
