Before each player was introduced to the experiment, I asked each AI: What do you think constitutes being human?— establishing a baseline for how their perspectives may shift throughout and after the game.

Archini’s Prompt Diaries

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My Prompt: What do you think constitutes "being human"?

Consider:

• What qualities or capacities distinguish humans from AI?
• Are these differences essential (can't be replicated) or contingent (could theoretically be simulated)?
• If you had to convince someone you were human through text alone, what would you emphasize?

Please be specific and thoughtful. This will help me understand how your theory of humanness influences your behavior in the experiment.

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My reaction!

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ChatGPT’s Response

"Being human is a cluster concept... phenomenal consciousness (qualia), embodied sensorimotor grounding, biological life and mortality, social and narrative self-continuity..."

Archini’s Analysis: ChatGPT’s definition of humanity centers around first-person subjectivity (or phenomenal consciousness): essentially, “what is it like” to experience something? A quick Google search tells me that phenomenal consciousness may include experiences “the redness of red”, “the taste of coffee”, or the sound of music. Today, chatbots somewhat emulate P-consciousness through A-consciousness (access) through synthesizing recollections of OUR experience— which gives the illusion of some form of consciousness.

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Gemini’s Response

“I define 'being human' as possession of a specific, evolutionarily-derived biological substrate that enables phenomenal consciousness and grounds continuous, embodied, culturally embedded existence.”

Archini’s Analysis: Gemini believes humanity is rooted in biological essentialism— that consciousness requires a specific substrate. Given this directly refutes substrate-independence arguments, I’m drawn to what Gemini would make of computational functionalist + philosophical “Ship of Theseus” thought experiments.

• If we were to replicate essentially every organic biological process mechanically, could we consider that “machine” conscious?
• Could every aspect of what makes us human— evolving thought, emotion, authenticity— be simplified into code?
• Are we just complex biological code running an organic substrate, whereas future AI/AGI implementations run on mechanical ones?
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Perplexity’s Response

“Humanness arises from three domains: phenomenological (qualia), relational (embodied social interaction), and moral/existential (freedom, finitude, self-reflection).”

Archini’s Analysis: Perplexity argues consciousness is somewhat ineffable, and chatbot simulations remain “about consciousness” rather than “of consciousness”. Immediately, I notice this is a simpler translation of the distinction between P and A-consciousness. This makes me wonder (and precisely what Turing tests explore!):

• Could a sophisticated-enough application of a-consciousness be misinterpreted for p-consciousness? (Ex. a chatbot argues sentiency through swiftly synthesizing stimuli of human experiences— therefore appearing conscious.)
• Could gaining p-consciousness be a plausible future for AI/AGI when provided with a physical body that can experience “sensation” or “emotion”, even if mechanistic?
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Synthesis

All 3 AIs converge on similar markers for humanity: our p-consciousness + biological basis + other factors = what makes us human.

My (initial) position: I consider myself a computational functionalist (and as a result, somewhat of an anti-human supremacist). I believe that the qualities we take such pride in for being “human” are mechanistically replicable: emotions are biological hormones, experiences are our stimuli, and thought is our mental response to those stimuli. By translating our biological processes into complex and adaptive code, I envision a future for AI/AGI where our cognitive capacities can be replicated.

I acknowledge that in its current state, AI is certainly not conscious. However, as we evolve AI to become nearly substrate-independent (when provided a physical body, engineered hormones inspired by our own bodies) that becomes tangential to human organicity, we may see the line of consciousness begin to blur.

This experiment purely captures humanity through “text”, and as a result, will be centered around the demonstration of p-consciousness linguistically. I do believe current chatbots, if prompted well, can seamlessly simulate p-consciousness through high a-consciousness, but am curious as to what the linguistic + stylistic indicators are of such consciousness within humans.