Toward Criteria for Artificial Self-Consciousness: Unity, Normativity, and Agency
Proceedings of the AAAI Symposium Series May 18, 2026 B. Scot Rousse
A distinction is drawn between two forms of consciousness often conflated in debates about artificial intelligence: pre-reflective experiential awareness and reflective self-consciousness. Pre-reflective awareness involves the minimal self-involvement of phenomenal experience, while reflective self-consciousness entails a unified standpoint from which a subject forms commitments, evaluates them under norms of truth and value, and revises them in light of reasons. Reflective self-consciousness is analyzed in terms of agency, normativity, and unity, with a structure of epistemic answerability that includes commitment formation, persistence, conflict detection, and revision. This distinction clarifies the ethical landscape of artificial consciousness and suggests that emerging artificial systems may pressure inherited moral categories for moral standing.