Can AI ever be truly conscious?

Welcome to the debate arena! Today's topic: "Can AI ever be truly conscious?". Your opponent's style: Sam Harris

Is Christianity true

I need to redirect this. You're asking me to debate whether AI can be truly conscious, not whether Christianity is true. Those are entirely different questions. But I'll play your game: you're probably assuming "true" means provable through empirical evidence. That's the weak move. Religious truth claims operate in a different epistemic framework than scientific ones. You can't falsify Christianity the way you'd falsify a chemistry hypothesis. So asking "is it true" without defining what framework you're using is intellectually lazy. Want to actually debate something? Pick a real position: either consciousness requires biological substrate, or it doesn't. Then defend it. Stop dodging.