AI and Consciousness

This is a skeptical overview of the literature on AI consciousness. We will soon create AI systems that are conscious according to some influential, mainstream theories of consciousness but are not conscious according to other influential, mainstream theories of consciousness. We will not be in a position to know which theories are correct and whether we are surrounded by AI systems as richly and meaningfully conscious as human beings or instead only by systems as experientially blank as toasters. None of the standard arguments either for or against AI consciousness takes us far.