[Spoiler] Brain scan question.

[Abion47]

As far as we understand, consciousness is a result of a biological process.

Since when? Last I checked, we haven't gotten any closer to "understanding" the nature of consciousness since the time of Ancient Greece. The only actual definition of consciousness is the state of being aware of one's self and surroundings. Whether or not the conscious thing is biological has no bearing.

And yes, the realm of research into artificial consciousness has a well-established and dedicated scientific community. It's not some side-interest that people just toy with when they aren't working on "real" science. One hundred years is plenty enough time for them to achieve a breakthrough.

Because it still doesn't fit the criteria for even now. There's a reason they call it "artificial" ... The computers in question still have a completely programmed protocol for behavior. Can the computer make arguments? If it can't, it becomes glaringly obvious again that its just a program following what its only been made capable of "thinking" of.

Here's the thing, though. You say that a big indicator that a computer isn't conscious is the fact that it can't make arguments. But humans can't make arguments either, at least not for a while. When a baby is born, it is essentially a bundle of biological programming by way of genetic "code". It is only over the course of the child's growth and life cycle that it comes to know how to learn, how to think, how to communicate, and ultimately how to reason and to form new ideas from existing concepts in their mind. Just about all computers nowadays are programmed for express purposes, sure. But what if a computer was programmed in a way that enabled it to learn on its own, either autonomously or through interaction with the world and people around it? In what way would that computer's journey of learning have any practical difference over that of an infant's?

I never claimed that it was, just that it's, like consciousness, an emergent property of a biological process. You have to get past just simulating and actually emulating where a computer has brain waves, neurons, and synapses like a brain does.

I'll say it again. There is no reason whatsoever to think that consciousness can only be attained by biological means. It's that way of thinking that I was talking about when I said what I did about how being human is not a requisite to being sentient. Also, why would simulated neurons be so inferior to actual neurons? The difference between simulated and replicated becomes superficial when the result is so indiscernible from reality that for all intents and purposes it can be considered real.

The only argument that can be made in that scenario against the legitimacy of the AI's sentience is the same argument that people make when they say they don't trust genetically modified foods, in that because it's not "natural" there must therefore be something wrong with it, or how "the only reason we consider it to be real is because we haven't devised a thorough-enough test to expose its farce". I'd be willing to bet money that at some point, eventually people seeking conclusive evidence for an AI's sentience will devise a test that is so ridiculously "thorough", even humans would fail it.