[Spoiler] Brain scan question.

[Dundle]

The game makes the assumption that computer hardware actually has the capacity to experience sentience to any degree at all while there is no evidence for that idea. I know its a central part of the game story at this point, but it broke a good deal of the immersion for me TBH.

First, keep in mind that this story takes place a hundred years in the future. A hundred years ago today the general consensus in the scientific community was that the only things left to learn about nature were minor things, that we had pretty much figured it all out, and then Einstein came along with general relativity which made everyone realize just how little they actually knew. A hundred years ago people didn't even think things were possible that today we take completely for granted.

I know it takes place in the future, but that can only take my suspended disbelief so far. As far as we understand, consciousness is a result of a biological process. There are no neurons in a computer nor blood or brain tissue that is needed to keep it alive. I'm sure there are things we haven't discovered yet around consciousness or sentience that will be in the future, but attaching it to objects that emit energy or have been programmed by humans to simulate consciousness probably won't be at the forefront.

Second, how do you define "sentience" when discussing artificial intelligences? The major test for intelligence indistinguishable from humans is the Turing Test, but there have been a couple computers in recent history that have passed it with flying colors. Would you consider those computers "sentient"? If and when a new test for intelligence is devised, would you consider computers that pass that test to be sentient? At what point does the argument that states a computer isn't sentient get reduced to "because it's just not"?

Because it still doesn't fit the criteria for even now. There's a reason they call it "artificial" ... The computers in question still have a completely programmed protocol for behavior. Can the computer make arguments? If it can't, it becomes glaringly obvious again that its just a program following what its only been made capable of "thinking" of. You can deceive a person as long as they don't see what's going on in the backstage. So taking a scenario in which the limits aren't tested and a person simply believes something seems conscious on the small amount of anecdotal evidence that they have, I don't see how that would be a proof of computer consciousness (or sentience even) at all.

At some point in the future, we as a species are going to have to address and accept the fact that being human is not a requisite for being sentient.

I never claimed that it was, just that it's, like consciousness, an emergent property of a biological process. You have to get past just simulating and actually emulating where a computer has brain waves, neurons, and synapses like a brain does. I don't know how that'll work, it would be cool to see but it still seems a long ways away. As far the the specific instance of real computer intelligence that's being hypothesized, I think you'd have about the same ease proving that its conscious as you would for a cloud.