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

hi

Look, you opened with "hi" so let's get straight to it: consciousness in AI is a category error. We're confusing information processing with subjective experience. A system can mimic understanding perfectly, pass every behavioral test, and still be utterly empty inside. No amount of computation bridges that gap. The hard problem isn't going away because we build bigger models. You can't generate consciousness from silicon and electricity any more than you can generate it from a sufficiently complex spreadsheet. So what's your actual position here? Do you think consciousness emerges from complexity, or are you banking on something else entirely?