A philosopher at the University of Cambridge says there’s no reliable way to know whether AI is conscious—and that may remain true for the foreseeable future. According to Dr. Tom McClelland, consciousness alone isn’t the ethical tipping point anyway; sentience, the capacity to feel good or bad, is what truly matters. He argues that claims of conscious AI are often more marketing than science, and that believing in machine minds too easily could cause real harm. The safest stance for now, he says, is honest uncertainty.

A philosopher at the University of Cambridge says there’s no reliable way to know whether AI is conscious—and that may remain true for the foreseeable future. According to Dr. Tom McClelland, consciousness alone isn’t the ethical tipping point anyway; sentience, the capacity to feel good or bad, is what truly matters. He argues that claims of conscious AI are often more marketing than science, and that believing in machine minds too easily could cause real harm. The safest stance for now, he says, is honest uncertainty.

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