Butlin, P., Long, R., Elmoznino, E., Bengio, Y., Birch, J., Deane, G., Fleming, S., Xu, C., Kanai, J., Klein, C., Lindsay, G., Michel, M., Mudrik, L., Peters, M., Schwitzgebel, E., Simon, J., & Vanrullen, R. (2023). Consciousness in Artificial Intelligence: Insights from the Science of Consciousness. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2308.08708. This paper scientifically unpacks the challenging philosophical dilemma: is AI conscious? By developing indicator properties driven from recurrent processing theory, global workforce theory, etc; they find that AI is currently not conscious even if computational fundamentalism (the idea that biological processes are akin to computational processes) is accepted. Ultimately, consciousness itself is mysterious - and questions regarding substrate independence and the truth behind computational fundamentalism persist - making it difficult to determine whether AI can ever truly be considered conscious. Of the two types of consciousness discussed (phenomenal and access) - my study probes the latter - honing in on the comparable information-processing capabilities of AI and humans over the undetectable physicality. Ultimately, this paper grounds my research in the niche of the interrelated nature of access and phenomenal consciousness - and whether an extraordinary capability in access can simulate a false, yet believable, recollection of phenomenal consciousness; ultimately enabling a chatbot to pass a modified Turing test.
Jones, C., & Bergen, B. (2024). People cannot distinguish GPT-4 from a human in a Turing test. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3715275.3732108. This paper outlines a Turing test where humans determine whether they are conversing with another human or an AI. This particular iteration of the experiment is the first of its kind, where AI successfully passes the test and fools humans. The fact that guesses were reliant on stylistic choices and socioemotional factors emphasizes how difficult AI detection is amidst current technological advancements. My research treats this paper as a seminal work and takes it a step further - when given the option to adapt strategies to pass the test, what characteristics will AI embody that it considers human?
Piccinini, G. (2010). The Mind as Neural Software? Understanding Functionalism, Computationalism, and Computational Functionalism. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 81(2), 269–311. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1933-1592.2010.00356.x