Microsoft’s AI chief, Mustafa Suleyman, has claimed in an interview with CNBC that only biological beings have consciousness, but not artificial intelligence, even if it is better than you at a pop quiz. This stance flies in the face of the idea that AI is somehow conscious and reiterates the fact that AI is just a tool, but a powerful one at that.
According to Suleyman, who founded Inflection AI before moving to Microsoft, the AI is only simulating experience, it doesn’t really feel sadness or pain, even if it claims to. It’s just creating a “seeming narrative of experience.”
“Our physical experience of pain is something that makes us very sad and feel terrible, but the AI doesn’t feel sad when it experiences ‘pain,’” Suleyman said. “It’s a very, very important distinction. It’s really just creating the perception, the seeming narrative of experience and of itself and of consciousness, but that is not what it’s actually experiencing. Technically you know that because we can see what the model is doing.”
His belief that AI is not conscious aligns with that of biological naturalism, proposed by philosopher John Searle, which links consciousness to the processes of a living brain. If your response to this is “Who cares?”, it is important because it has ramifications for things such as rights.
“The reason we give people rights today is because we don’t want to harm them, because they suffer. They have a pain network, and they have preferences which involve avoiding pain,” Suleyman said. “These models don’t have that. It’s just a simulation.”
Suleyman has another reason for speaking out on the matter too. He wanted to air his thoughts on the science of detecting consciousness, which is still nascent. While he doesn’t believe people should be prevented from researching the topic, he personally opposes the idea explaining that AI is not conscious and it would be therefore absurd to pursue the question. He also claimed AI models cannot ever be conscious, now or in the future.
For Suleyman and Microsoft the practical strategy is to build AI that is “always working in service of the human” and doesn’t pretend to be conscious. Suleyman has also previously stated that Microsoft will not be building any erotica chatbots, something that both OpenAI and xAI have chosen to do. Microsoft has also recently launched Real Talk on Copilot which challenges the user instead of being sycophantic.
Aside from naysaying AI’s potential consciousness, Suleyman also warned that those who are not afraid do not really understand the technology. He warned that skepticism of AI and all its advances are necessary.
Source: CNBC