Some philosophers argue that unconscious autonomous agents could, in principle, be held morally responsible. This view is supported by a common line of reasoning, which the author calls the Extension Argument. The author contends that this argument, as currently formulated, is insufficient to prove that such agents can be morally responsible. The argument faces particularly strong ethical objections, and its epistemological foundations are weak, partly because the justifications for its premises conflict with each other.
Despite recent advances, artificial intelligence systems fundamentally differ from human cognition because they lack biological embodiment, situatedness, and autonomy. Humans learn through embodied, intersubjective experiences tied to survival and adaptation, whereas AIs cannot undergo structural changes due to their disembodied nature. The embodiment challenge argues that without these self-sustaining, survival-driven processes, artificial systems cannot replicate natural cognition. Creating a genuinely cognitive artificial intelligence would require first achieving artificial life.