Highlights

Advances in artificial intelligence are making it increasingly difficult to distinguish between uniquely human behaviors and those that can be replicated by machines.

What exactly is consciousness? And will it remain a biological trait, or could it ultimately be shared by the AGI devices we’ve created?

The Von Neumann bottleneck prevents our current computers from matching—or even approaching—the processing capacity of a human brain. Because of it, many experts think that consciousness in modern-day computers is highly unlikely.

While IIT predicts that artificially intelligent computers do not possess the extra “something” required for consciousness (namely causal power), it does not dismiss the prospect of rapidly approaching highly intelligent machines—AGI systems that will surpass humans in their computational abilities. This is a crucial distinction we must remember to make, Koch cautions, as we evaluate how best to usher in a future brimming with AGI bots: “There is a difference between intelligence and consciousness.”