New in Draft: The Copernican Argument for Alien Consciousness; The Mimicry Argument Against Robot Consciousness
with Jeremy Pober
Over the past several years, I've posted a few times on what I call the "Copernican Argument" for thinking that behaviorally sophisticated space aliens would be conscious, even if they are constituted very differently from us (here, here, here, here). I've also posted a few times on what I call the "Mimicry Argument" against attributing consciousness to AI systems or robots that were designed to mimic the superficial signs of human consciousness (including current Large Language Models like ChatGPT and Claude) (here, here, here).
Finally, I have a circulatable paper in draft that deals with these issues, written in collaboration with Jeremy Pober, and tested with audiences at Trent University, Harvey Mudd, New York University, the Agency and Intentions in AI conference in Göttingen, Jagiellonian University, the Oxford Mind Seminar, University of Lisbon, NOVA Lisbon University, University of Hamburg, and the Philosophy of Neuroscience/Mind Writing Group.
It's a complicated paper! Several philosophers have advised me that the Copernican Argument is one paper and the Mimicry Argument is another. Maybe they are right. But I also think that there's a lot to be gained from advancing these arguments side by side: Each shines light on the boundaries of the other. The result, though intricate, is I hope not too intricate for evaluation and comprehensibility. (I might still change my mind about that.)
Abstract:
On broadly Copernican grounds, we are entitled to default assume that apparently behaviorally sophisticated extraterrestrial entities (“aliens”) would be conscious. Otherwise, we humans would be inexplicably, implausibly lucky to have consciousness, while similarly behaviorally sophisticated entities elsewhere would be mere shells, devoid of consciousness. However, this Copernican default assumption is canceled in the case of behaviorally sophisticated entities designed to mimic superficial features associated with consciousness in humans (“consciousness mimics”), and in particular a broad class of current, near-future, and hypothetical robots. These considerations, which we formulate, respectively, as the Copernican and Mimicry Arguments, jointly defeat an otherwise potentially attractive parity principle, according to which we should apply the same types of behavioral or cognitive tests to aliens and robots, attributing or denying consciousness similarly to the extent they perform similarly. Instead of grounding speculations about alien and robot consciousness in metaphysical or scientific theories about the physical or functional bases of consciousness, our approach appeals directly to the epistemic principles of Copernican mediocrity and inference to the best explanation. This permits us to justify certain default assumptions about consciousness while remaining to a substantial extent neutral about specific metaphysical and scientific theories.
As always, questions/comments/objections welcome here on the blog, on my social media accounts, or by email to my UCR address.
Interesting stuff. But perhaps first you should ask someone you know to prove to you they have consciousness, beyond mere stating they do because it feels that way before starting on aliens and robots. I am increasingly of the opinion that “consciousness” is a red herring we should stop looking for.