The paper argues that the current debate on machine consciousness rests on the mistaken assumption that AI systems are already the kind of entities that could possess consciousness. By distinguishing between phenomenal consciousness, introspective report, and human projective introspection, it introduces the AI Consciousness Fallacy, showing that generative models can produce first‑person linguistic traces without being conscious. It then proposes Causal Liability Theory (CLT), with CLT‑I defining liability closure as a criterion for identifying a bearer of consciousness and CLT‑II suggesting that liability closure is both necessary and sufficient for minimal phenomenal subjecthood, and demonstrates experimentally that these distinctions are tractable and can separate causal bearer structure from first‑person performance.
arXiv:2608. 11225v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: AI "personality clones" force a re-examination of personal identity in operational terms.
arXiv:2607. 15883v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Large language models are broadly capable, yet in sustained one-to-one conversation they still read as flat: competent, responsive, and somehow not quite the presence of a mind.
arXiv:2609.35618v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: The question of AI consciousness is one of the most urgent pre-emptive problems in philosophy and computer science, yet progress is hampered by a c...
The article explores how analogy informs judgments about consciousness, especially in the context of artificial intelligence. It introduces a causal framework that distinguishes between similarities in underlying factors and similarities in observable behavior, weighting source-target similarity by causal relevance. Applying this framework to biological systems explains why analogical support weakens as causal distance from humans increases, and to AI it shows that behavioral similarity alone offers limited evidence for consciousness due to poorly established causal correspondences.
arXiv:2606. 06380v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: The question of whether artificial systems can be conscious remains open, in part because existing approaches either evaluate systems against theory-derived checklists (discriminative) or engineer consciousness-inspired modules directly (architectural); both leave open whether observed structures are artifacts of human language priors.
arXiv:2606. 15348v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: A common objection to artificial or simulated consciousness is that a simulated brain is no more conscious than simulated water is wet.
The paper investigates how large language models (LLMs) describe themselves, noting that their self‑reports vary with question phrasing. By tracing the provenance of 66 pretraining checkpoints, post‑training stages, and 90,000 continuations across four corpora, the authors show that denial statements are scarce in raw data but appear densely in curated dialogues, and that supervised fine‑tuning makes first‑person claims default while preference optimization suppresses alternatives. The study concludes that both trained denials and affirmations are equally sensitive to framing and fail to meet epistemic criteria for admissible testimony.
The paper presents a framework for causal attribution in agentic AI systems, outlining estimators and conditions where they fail. It distinguishes between marginal total effects and common‑random‑number total effects, introduces a natural direct effect under pinned downstreams, and derives a coupling method to keep direct effects estimable. The authors also propose a traceability specification to meet upcoming regulatory requirements for high‑risk AI systems.
arXiv:2608.22160v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Physical automation is scaling toward fleets of embodied machines commanded by an AI brain. Early deployments already run factories and warehouses at p...
arXiv:2604. 07778v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Existing accountability frameworks for AI systems, legal, ethical, and regulatory, rest on a shared assumption: for any consequential outcome, at least one identifiable person had enough involvement and foresight to bear meaningful responsibility.
arXiv:2608.28824v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Currently, in biological systems Neural Correlates of Consciousness (NCCs) are characterized in terms of EEG and FMRI signals. Unfortunately, this char...
arXiv:2608. 14804v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) have become the dominant interface of clinical artificial intelligence, yet the interface they expose (text in, text out, one context window at a time) maintains no explicit, persistent, governed representation of what is currently true about a patient.