Everyone’s talking about “conscious AI” or “emergent AGI,” but step back for a second — scientists still don’t have a working definition of what consciousness actually is.

Is it computation? Information integration? Or something else we can’t yet measure?

If we can’t define the target, how can we tell whether a machine has hit it?

Are we building intelligence, or just better mimicry?

(Genuinely curious how the HN crowd thinks about this — engineers, neuroscientists, philosophers all welcome.)

Posted by f_of_t

Definitions are for math. For science it's enough to operationalize: e.g. to study the differences between wakefulness and sleep; or sensory systems and their integration into a model of the environment; or the formation and recall of memories; or self-recognition via the mirror task; or planning behaviors and adaptation when the environment forces plans to change; or cognitive strategies, biases, heuristics, and errors; or meta-cognition; and so on at length. There's a vast amount of scientific knowledge developed in these areas. Saying "scientists can't define consciousness" sounds awkwardly like a failure to look into what the scientists have found. Many scientists have proposed definitions of consciousness, but for now, consensus science hasn't found it useful to give a single definition to consciousness, because there's no single thing unifying all those behaviors.

I assert you don't have consciousness. Now, prove to me that you do.

You're conflating consciousness and AGI. People are certainly talking about AI, people are very broadly talking about AGI and what that term means. I don't think many people are talking about consciousness in this context, at least not seriously, and one good reason for it is the lack of a concrete definition and the fact that it's a topic that we can't make falsifiable claims about and build any science around.

It's been an issue for a while, but just a week ago: A definition of AGI https://arxiv.org/html/2510.18212v2

The consciousness will have to wait for another time. But that one's likely to be extremely contentious and more of a philosophy question without practical impact.

> Yet we think AI will have it

Lenny Bruce joking as Tonto to the Lone Ranger:

Who is "we" white man?

The lede observation depends upon whether "we" can expect our science to ever produce an intelligible theory of mind.

The difficulty of producing a theory of mind makes the Imitation Game a compelling approach to setting expectations for AI.

And also portends of the hazard that we become so distracted by simulacra that we lose all bearing upon ourselves.

Agreed but it's even more fundamental than that.

We don't even have a universally accepted definition of intelligence.

The only universally agreed on artifact of intelligence that we have is the human brain. And we still don't have a conceptual model of how it works like we do with DNA replication.

Our society incentivizes selling out the mimicry of intelligence rather than actually learning its true nature.

I believe that there exists an element of human intelligence that AI will never be able to mimic due to limitations of silicon vs biological hardware.

I also believe that the people or beings that are truly in control of this world are well aware of this and want us to remain focused on dead-end technologies. Much like politics is focused on the same old dead-end discussions. They want to keep this world in a technological stasis for as long as they can.

You nailed the exact reason why AGI is a snake oil.

The only successful experiments probing consciousness are in anaesthesia or psychedelics. Everything else is wonderful but theoretical.

We can no longer understand AI.

Classic category error, the subject can never be objectively defined. The moment you define consciousness, it becomes an object and you fall into infinite regress.

I was thinking about this some time ago and came to the conclusion that it is utterly impossible to talk about creating sentient AI with the binary computer technology that we are using today. In order for us to create sAI, our entire technology would have to completely change to something else, likely along the line of analog to work as a single system instead of constant switch between 1 and 0. And that is likely centuries away, as I do not see humanity doing a complete technological rehaul of the entire hardware stack we're deploying today.

As for what consciousness actually is, I think the closest description is the summary of oneself. Meaning, all the computational power of the brain as a whole forms a person - a computational powerhouse with its own identity. That goes then to discussions where the "I", as in ego or oneself, ends. Is it at the limb, like a hand, or is it at an indivodual fallen hair or a dead skin flake? How about sperm or egg, is it still me?

Then we have the conundrum of people who get brain damage or some kind of degenerative brain desease, like Alzheimer. Where you can clearly see "them" fading away and you observe just a shell of a human being. So where is this "I" then? What defines it?

All of these are quite esoteric conversations more suitable for occasions where a lot of alcohol and few good friends are involved :)

I conceive of AI as a lookup into volume 24 (the word index) of my Encyclopedia Britannica in 1965.

The primary difference being the enormity of the size of database, but the concept is identical.

To think 13 year old me had AI sitting in my attic.