CAN WE QUANTIFY MACHINE CONSCIOUSNESS? “Computationalism is based on the assumption that if two systems are functionally indistinguishable, they will be mentally indistinguishable. Because we experience the world, the argument goes, a digital computer that is functionally equivalent to us would necessarily also experience the world as we do—that is, it would also be conscious. But is this assumption warranted? To answer such a question, we need a principled, quantitative theory of what consciousness is and what it takes for a physical system to have it.”

I wrote a song once called Shut Up And Compute! but I’m not sure I actually adhere to that philosophy, whether in physics or in AI.