About what it would take for an AI to convince people it is conscious.
Has this happened?
Yes 83 (69%)Not sure 18 (15%)No 20 (17%)
Votes cast 1–2 October 2026: 100,590 votes from 9,694 people.
Hacker News has set AI a lot of challenges over the years. Which ones has it met?
About what it would take for an AI to convince people it is conscious.
Votes cast 1–2 October 2026: 100,590 votes from 9,694 people.
The Turing Test. That's all we've got.
We cannot objectively detect consciousness, we can only assume someone is conscious based on the fact that they're like us and we have consciousness, and the fact that they behave like they're conscious.
AI lacks the former, so we're less likely to assume they're conscious, but we can test their behaviour with the Turing Test, and the assumption has always been that we're going to consider them conscious once they pass that test.
And these new chat bots really sound like they might pass that test. At least compared to some people.