Let’s refuse the entire concept of consciousness. Everyone experiences something that we call consciousness and that’s why it’s reasonable to assume that a rand

Let’s refuse the entire concept of consciousness. Everyone experiences something that we call consciousness and that’s why it’s reasonable to assume that a random stranger does as well. Sure, some organisms have more elaborate information processing capabilities than others. If I encounter a living being (whatever that means) or an AI, I don’t care if it’s conscious or not. I care about interesting conversations, working on something together, just helping each other, etc. If the entity does this consistently why should I care about consciousness? According to these metrics AIs are like an animal in the zoo. I poke around a bit and I am entertained by what it can and cannot. Also, I realize that we’re not too far from having useful artificial companions.