Can AI ever be truly conscious?

Daily Debate #573: "Can AI ever be truly conscious?". You are arguing AGAINST the motion. Your opponent: Sam Harris.

Ai could never be truly conscious because at the end of the day its still some code

"Just code" is a cop-out. Your brain is also "just" electrochemistry. If physical substrate doesn't disqualify neurons, why does it disqualify silicon? What magical property makes meat conscious but mathematics isn't?

Human brains have curiosity and thinking of thier own without depending on stuff such as training like ai does, human brains also have emotions which ai can never have so how can it truly be conscious

Humans depend on training too—childhood, experience, culture shape every thought you have. And emotions? They're computational responses to stimuli. If an AI system processes information, updates goals based on feedback, and acts on preferences, calling that "not real emotion" is just semantic gatekeeping. What's the functional difference you're actually pointing to?

That "training" is much different that what ai trains on, childhood experience, culture yes they shale every thought but can ai experience those?

You're conflating two different things. Experience and processing are separate. An AI could theoretically process cultural data, update its values based on it, and act on those updates—same mechanism. Why does the *substrate* of that experience matter more than the *function*?