A Case for AI Consciousness: Language Agents and Global Workspace Theory

One common attitude towards AI is that existing AIs are not phenomenally conscious, and that the construction of conscious Ais would require significant technological progress if it is possible at all. We challenge this assumption by arguing that if global workspace theory (GWT) — a leading scientific theory of phenomenal consciousness — is correct, then instances of one widely implemented AI architecture, the artificial language agent, might easily be made phenomenally conscious if they are not already. Moreover, we argue that artificial language agents have further properties that should allay the concerns of many who are sceptical of GWT as a complete theory of phenomenal consciousness. Along the way, we articulate an explicit methodology for thinking about how to apply scientific theories of consciousness to artificial systems and employ this methodology to arrive at a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for phenomenal consciousness according to GWT.