Public Skepticism about AI Consciousness

Most people think that current AI systems, such as ChatGPT, lack consciousness—the capacity for subjective experience. But what about future AI systems so advanced that their behavior, appearance, and functionality are indistinguishable from humans? Across one main and four supplementary preregistered experiments (total N = 3,455), participants imagined interacting with such systems in hypothetical future scenarios. On average, people remain deeply skeptical: they attribute very low levels of consciousness to even the most advanced AI, comparable to an ant and far below a chimpanzee or a human. Still, several factors increased consciousness attributions. Ratings rose when experts endorsed the system’s consciousness, when participants formed an emotional connection during interaction, when the system was described as an exact digital copy of a human brain, and when it had a physical body. The largest effect occurred when the AI was depicted as gradually transitioning from a human while retaining memories and other psychological traits. Although average attributions were low, variability was high for the more advanced systems: many participants gave very low ratings, while others gave very high ones. This polarization suggests that as AI systems become more capable and human-like, public views about their potential consciousness could diverge sharply.