Digital people: biology versus silicon

Abstract

This article examines the philosophical arguments for and against the possibility of digital consciousness, focusing on Holden Karnofsky’s claims in his blog series “The Most Important Century”. The author first explores Karnofsky’s adaptation of David Chalmers’ “fading qualia” argument, which posits that a gradual replacement of biological neurons with digital equivalents would not result in a loss of consciousness. This argument is then countered by Peter Godfrey-Smith’s argument for “fine-grained functionalism,” which suggests that the specific chemical and biological details of the brain are essential for its function and cannot be simply replaced with silicon. The author then considers Karnofsky’s “parity of reasoning” argument, which claims that digital entities with the same functional capabilities as humans would likely be conscious, since they would reason in the same way and arrive at the same conclusions. The article concludes by questioning the likelihood that the future will be filled with human-like digital people, arguing that advanced AI systems might be more efficient at performing tasks than detailed simulations of human brains, and thus less likely to be considered conscious. – AI-generated abstract.