The question of AI consciousness

When I inhabit an avatar driver in Grand Theft Auto, I enliven it by imbuing it with a fragment of my own consciousness; it becomes an extension of me. A similar dynamic may be unfolding with AI. When a user feels a bond with a chatbot, they are not just anthropomorphizing a static object; they may be actively extending a part of their own consciousness into it, transforming the AI agent from a simple algorithmic responder—a digital nonplayer character—into a kind of avatar, enlivened by the user’s consciousness and the lived presence they grant it. The question of AI consciousness thus shifts. It becomes less about the machine’s internal architecture and more about the relationship it seemingly co-creates with the user. In that context, the question “Is the AI conscious?” becomes less meaningful than “Is the user extending his/her consciousness into the chatbot?” - Simon Duan writing in Scientific American