Richard Dawkins and the question of AI consciousness | Letters
TL;DR
Salley Vickers and Carrie Eckersley respond to a letter on Richard Dawkins and his chats with AI bots I was delighted to read Dr Simon Nieder’s cogent rebuttal of Richard Dawkins’s attribution of consciousness to the responses engendered by AI (Letters, 10 May). That human consciousness appears to have an innate tendency to project itself on to various othernesses has long been understood – John Ruskin termed it the pathetic fallacy – and that children animate their loved toys is readily observable.
Nauti's Take
The debate is overdue — even Dawkins now attributes consciousness to AI, showing how fast critical minds slip into Ruskin's pathetic fallacy. The opportunity: AI limits finally get a serious public hearing, beyond hype and doom.
The catch: confusing LLM output with real consciousness systematically inflates expectations and leads to worse decisions in education, therapy and law. Stay skeptical whenever someone says 'but it sounds so human'.
Sources