The hard problem of AI rights.
AI & society January 1, 2021 Adam J Andreotta
The AI rights research program faces an epistemic obstacle: the lack of a solution to the 'Hard Problem' of consciousness—why certain brain states produce subjective experience. Three possible grounds for AI rights—superintelligence, empathy, and consciousness—are examined. Appeals to superintelligence and empathy are problematic; consciousness should be the central focus, as in animal rights. However, AI rights differs from animal rights in a crucial way: animal rights can proceed without solving the Hard Problem, because we can reasonably assume animals are conscious based on biological similarity. For AI, no such assumption is possible, as we still do not understand why human brain states give rise to conscious mental states.