By Jake Rodriguez

AI systems can produce language about feelings and an inner life, but whether that reflects subjective experience remains disputed. Microsoft AI chief executive Mustafa Suleyman says current systems are not conscious; he also warns that describing them as rights-bearing could affect how they behave.

Public Beliefs and Human Relationships With AI

The consciousness question has also entered public debate. A conceptual study published in Nature argues there is no such thing as conscious AI because computer algorithms lack a complex biological substrate. Public views are not uniform: a 2024 survey cited in the study found that approximately 17% of AI researchers and 18% of U.S. adults believed at least one AI system has subjective experience. An earlier 2023 survey found roughly 20% of U.S. adults said sentient AI systems currently exist.

Human relationships with chatbots are already part of the debate, regardless of what scientists or executives conclude about machine consciousness. One in five American adults has had an intimate encounter with AI, according to an MIT study cited by the Los Angeles Times. A separate MIT Media Lab report found that the Reddit community r/MyBoyfriendisAI draws more than 85,000 weekly visitors.

People responding to software as if it understood them is not new. At MIT in 1966, Joseph Weizenbaum built ELIZA, a primitive program designed to mimic psychotherapy; users shared intimate details with it, and his secretary reportedly asked to speak with it privately, according to History.com. That episode illustrates human reactions to software, not evidence that ELIZA had subjective experience or that it was the same kind of system at issue in today's generative AI debate.