On the independence between phenomenal consciousness and computational intelligence

Summary

Phenomenal consciousness and computational intelligence are independent properties, so machines that solve problems like humans do are not necessarily conscious. The authors argue that problem-solving ability does not imply consciousness, and that machines may develop higher computational intelligence than humans without possessing phenomenal consciousness. They propose an objective measure of computational intelligence and examine its distribution across humans, animals, and machines, while treating phenomenal consciousness as a dichotomous variable. The independence of these traits has critical social implications, particularly regarding rights: if rights were granted based on problem-solving capacity, machines could be seen as having more rights than people with disabilities, which the authors reject.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Consciousness and intelligence are properties commonly understood as dependent by folk psychology and society in general. The term artificial intelligence and the kind of problems that it managed to solve in the recent years has been shown as an argument to establish that machines experience some sort of consciousness. Following the analogy of Russell, if a machine is able to do what a conscious human being does, the likelihood that the machine is conscious increases. However, the social implications of this analogy are catastrophic. Concretely, if rights are given to entities that can solve the kind of problems that a neurotypical person can, does the machine have potentially more rights that a person that has a disability? For example, the autistic syndrome disorder spectrum can make a person unable to solve the kind of problems that a machine solves. We believe that the obvious answer is no, as problem solving does not imply consciousness. Consequently, we will argue in this paper how phenomenal consciousness and, at least, computational intelligence are independent and why machines do not possess phenomenal consciousness, although they can potentially develop a higher computational intelligence that human beings. In order to do so, we try to formulate an objective measure of computational intelligence and study how it presents in human beings, animals and machines. Analogously, we study phenomenal consciousness as a dichotomous variable and how it is distributed in humans, animals and machines. As phenomenal consciousness and computational intelligence are independent, this fact has critical implications for society that we also analyze in this work.

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