{"id":23317,"date":"2026-10-25T05:21:23","date_gmt":"2026-10-25T05:21:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/8657085.xyz\/?p=23317"},"modified":"2026-10-25T05:21:23","modified_gmt":"2026-10-25T05:21:23","slug":"ai-can-act-exactly-like-a-human-but-we-still-do-not-think-it-is-conscious","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/8657085.xyz\/?p=23317","title":{"rendered":"AI can act exactly like a human, but we still do not think it is conscious"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <div style=\"display: grid; grid-template-columns: 300px 160px; gap: 2px; width: 460px; background: #eee; padding: 2px;\">\r\n\r\n  <!-- \u6574\u884c\u5bbd\u5e7f\u544a -->\r\n  <div style=\"grid-column: 1\/-1; width: 460px; height: 250px; background: #ccc; display: grid; place-items: center;\">\r\n  <script async type=\"application\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/a.magsrv.com\/ad-provider.js\"><\/script> \r\n <ins class=\"eas6a97888e2\" data-zoneid=\"5876674\"><\/ins> \r\n <script>(AdProvider = window.AdProvider || []).push({\"serve\": {}});<\/script>\r\n  <\/div>\r\n  <div style=\"grid-column: 1\/-1; width: 460px; height: 90px; background: #ccc; display: grid; place-items: center;\">\r\n  <script async type=\"application\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/a.magsrv.com\/ad-provider.js\"><\/script> \r\n <ins class=\"eas6a97888e2\" data-zoneid=\"5876676\"><\/ins> \r\n <script>(AdProvider = window.AdProvider || []).push({\"serve\": {}});<\/script>\r\n  <\/div>\r\n\r\n  <!-- \u5de6\u4fa7\u7ad6\u6392 -->\r\n  <div style=\"height: 250px; background: #ccc; display: grid; place-items: center;\">\r\n  <script async type=\"application\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/a.magsrv.com\/ad-provider.js\"><\/script> \r\n <ins class=\"eas6a97888e2\" data-zoneid=\"5876672\"><\/ins> \r\n <script>(AdProvider = window.AdProvider || []).push({\"serve\": {}});<\/script>\r\n  <\/div>\r\n  <div style=\"height: 500px; background: #ccc; display: grid; place-items: center;\">\r\n  <script async type=\"application\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/a.magsrv.com\/ad-provider.js\"><\/script> \r\n <ins class=\"eas6a97888e2\" data-zoneid=\"5876680\"><\/ins> \r\n <script>(AdProvider = window.AdProvider || []).push({\"serve\": {}});<\/script>\r\n  <\/div>\r\n\r\n  <!-- \u53f3\u4fa7\u6469\u5929\u697c\uff08\u548c\u5de6\u4fa7\u5b8c\u5168\u5bf9\u9f50\uff09 -->\r\n  <div style=\"grid-row: 3\/5; height: 750px; background: #ccc; display: grid; place-items: center;\">\r\n  <script async type=\"application\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/a.magsrv.com\/ad-provider.js\"><\/script> \r\n <ins class=\"eas6a97888e2\" data-zoneid=\"5876678\"><\/ins> \r\n <script>(AdProvider = window.AdProvider || []).push({\"serve\": {}});<\/script>\r\n  <\/div>\r\n  \r\n  <script async type=\"application\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/a.magsrv.com\/ad-provider.js\"><\/script> \r\n <ins class=\"eas6a97888e6\" data-zoneid=\"5876682\"><\/ins> \r\n <script>(AdProvider = window.AdProvider || []).push({\"serve\": {}});<\/script>\r\n<\/div><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-right:0;padding-left:0\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Artificial intelligence can increasingly produce behaviour that appears strikingly human. Yet convincing behaviour is apparently not enough to persuade people that there is a conscious mind behind the machine. New research led by Louis Longin at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) indicates that people maintain a surprisingly firm boundary between human and artificial consciousness. When AI and humans were presented as behaving in equivalent ways under the same circumstances, participants were nevertheless substantially more reluctant to attribute consciousness to the artificial agents.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The findings, reported in the peer-reviewed journal <em>Cognition<\/em> under the title <em>AI is not as conscious as humans: Essentialism in mental state attributions to artificial systems<\/em>, are particularly relevant as machines become increasingly capable of behaviour that resembles reasoning, communication and autonomous action. The new research was conducted by Longin, Jurgis Karpus, Nadine Meertens, Bahador Bahrami and Ophelia Deroy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The research also exposes an important linguistic distinction. People appear much happier to describe an AI as \u201caware\u201d than they are to call the same system \u201cconscious\u201d. This difference matters greatly for how AI is presented to the public. Rather than simply asking participants whether AI can possess mental states, the researchers sought to make direct comparisons between humans and artificial agents displaying equivalent behaviour. Across experiments involving nearly 1,100 participants, people encountered short descriptions of agents displaying different degrees of responsiveness to their surroundings. These included behaviours such as reacting to sounds and recognising emotional states.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Some participants were told that the agents were artificial. Others encountered equivalent situations involving humans. Greater responsiveness increased perceptions of both consciousness and awareness. The critical finding, however, was what happened when the researchers compared the two types of agent. Even the most responsive artificial intelligence was perceived as less conscious than the least responsive human. Consequently, displaying the outward signs associated with cognition does not necessarily persuade an observer that there is an experiencing mind inside the system.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This distinction is becoming increasingly significant because contemporary AI can generate sophisticated responses and undertake increasingly complex tasks. Digital Journal has previously examined how AI is moving beyond answering questions towards more complicated activities requiring context and autonomous action.  The LMU findings suggest increasing behavioural sophistication need not translate directly into increasing public belief in machine consciousness.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"h-conscious-or-simply-aware\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Conscious or simply aware?<\/h2>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Perhaps the most revealing aspect of the research arises from changing just one word. When researchers asked participants whether agents were \u201caware\u201d, rather than \u201cconscious\u201d, the pronounced human-AI separation diminished. Assessments of awareness more closely tracked what the agents actually did, irrespective of whether they were people or artificial systems. The distinction points towards two different ways in which people understand minds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cAwareness\u201d can be interpreted functionally. A system detects something, processes the information and responds accordingly. From this perspective, describing a sufficiently capable machine as being aware of something need not make a claim about its inner experience. \u201cConsciousness\u201d, in contrast, has stronger associations with subjective experience: the idea that there is something it feels like to be that entity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is important because consciousness remains scientifically difficult to define and identify. Earlier Digital Journal reporting on consciousness research noted that scientists still lack agreement over how subjective experience emerges and that developing reliable methods for detecting consciousness could have major consequences for medicine, animal welfare, law and artificial intelligence. The possibility of consciousness in machines consequently remains both a scientific and ethical question. <\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The new LMU research does not establish whether an AI could ever become conscious. Instead, it investigates something different: what leads humans to <em>believe<\/em> that another entity possesses consciousness.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h2 id=\"h-the-problem-of-anthropomorphism\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">The problem of anthropomorphism<\/h2>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">AI makes this especially complicated because human-like behaviour is part of the attraction of conversational systems. People naturally employ mental-state language when interacting with technology. An AI can appear to \u201cknow\u201d information, \u201cunderstand\u201d a request or \u201cdecide\u201d between possible responses. Yet such vocabulary can encourage conclusions about an artificial system that go beyond observations of its behaviour.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is where the LMU study adds useful nuance. The findings suggest people are not simply being fooled by anthropomorphic behaviour. Participants could apparently recognise functionally sophisticated behaviour while remaining reluctant to grant an artificial agent the deeper status associated with consciousness. That psychological boundary could become increasingly important as AI becomes woven into everyday activities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There is already evidence that people are beginning to rethink their relationship with the technology. Digital Journal has reported on emerging research into <strong>cognitive offloading<\/strong>, whereby people delegate mental tasks to external tools. Generative AI extends this tendency because it can participate in activities including reasoning, writing and information retrieval. Hence, how AI is used may consequently affect the extent to which people remain cognitively engaged.  Yet relying upon a system intellectually does not necessarily mean considering it a fellow conscious being.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The research also carries an important warning for technology companies, policymakers and journalists: terminology matters. Descriptions suggesting that an AI \u201cwants\u201d, \u201cbelieves\u201d, \u201cplans\u201d, \u201chesitates\u201d or \u201cunderstands\u201d something may sound harmless, particularly when simpler language would produce awkward sentences. However, these terms come with psychological baggage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The LMU findings indicate that the public can make comparatively subtle distinctions. People may accept that a machine detects and responds to its environment without assuming that it experiences the world as a human does. This distinction is especially consequential as questions surrounding AI autonomy move beyond philosophical discussion and towards practical issues of responsibility and governance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The wider debate has already reached areas such as legal personhood. A recent Digital Journal commentary highlighted the potential liability complications that could arise from treating autonomous AI as possessing some form of independent legal personality. Questions about AI consciousness, personhood and responsibility are therefore becoming increasingly interconnected. There are practical governance considerations, too. AI is already being deployed within organisations to support complex decisions, while businesses continue to debate the appropriate degree of human oversight. This links to the emerging concept of \u201cguided autonomy\u201d, in which AI can recommend or take actions while people retain supervisory authority. <\/p>\n<h2 id=\"h-a-boundary-that-technology-has-yet-to-erase\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">A boundary that technology has yet to erase<\/h2>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The most intriguing conclusion from the LMU work may therefore be that people do not judge artificial minds purely by observing what they do. Humans appear to bring an additional assumption to the question of consciousness. There remains something about being human that participants considered relevant even when observable behaviour was held constant. At the same time, the dramatic difference produced by substituting \u201cawareness\u201d for \u201cconsciousness\u201d shows that this boundary is partly shaped by language.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">AI may become increasingly skilled at talking, reasoning and reacting like us. What the research suggests is that imitation alone does not persuade people that a machine experiences the world like us. For now, at least, behaving human and <em>being regarded as having a human-like mind remain two very different things<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- \u603b\u5bb9\u5668\uff1a\u6700\u5927\u5bbd908px Grid\u7d27\u51d1\u5e03\u5c40 -->\r\n<div style=\"display: grid; grid-template-columns: 728px 160px; gap:2px; width:908px; background:#eee; padding:2px;\">\r\n\r\n  <!-- \u901a\u680f\u9876\u90e8\uff1a\u6700\u5927\u6a2a\u5e45 908x258 \u8de8\u6574\u884c -->\r\n  <div style=\"grid-column:1\/-1; height:258px; background:#ff6b6b; display:grid; place-items:center;\">\r\n    <!-- JuicyAds v3.0 -->\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\" data-cfasync=\"false\" async src=\"https:\/\/poweredby.jads.co\/js\/jads.js\"><\/script>\r\n<ins id=\"1114307\" data-width=\"908\" data-height=\"258\"><\/ins>\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\" data-cfasync=\"false\" async>(adsbyjuicy = window.adsbyjuicy || []).push({'adzone':1114307});<\/script>\r\n<!--JuicyAds END-->\r\n  <\/div>\r\n\r\n  <!-- \u7b2c\u4e8c\u901a\u680f\uff1a728\u00d790 \u901a\u680f -->\r\n  <div style=\"grid-column:1\/-1; 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display:grid; place-items:center;\">\r\n\t<!-- JuicyAds v3.0 -->\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\" data-cfasync=\"false\" async src=\"https:\/\/poweredby.jads.co\/js\/jads.js\"><\/script>\r\n<ins id=\"1114302\" data-width=\"133\" data-height=\"139\"><\/ins>\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\" data-cfasync=\"false\" async>(adsbyjuicy = window.adsbyjuicy || []).push({'adzone':1114302});<\/script>\r\n<!--JuicyAds END-->\r\n\t<\/div>\r\n    <div style=\"height:125px; background:#91e7ac; display:grid; place-items:center;\">\r\n\t\r\n<!-- JuicyAds v3.0 -->\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\" data-cfasync=\"false\" async src=\"https:\/\/poweredby.jads.co\/js\/jads.js\"><\/script>\r\n<ins id=\"1114303\" data-width=\"125\" data-height=\"125\"><\/ins>\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\" data-cfasync=\"false\" async>(adsbyjuicy = window.adsbyjuicy || []).push({'adzone':1114303});<\/script>\r\n<!--JuicyAds END-->\r\n\t<\/div>\r\n  <\/div>\r\n\r\n  <!-- \u53f3\u4fa7\u7ad6\u680f\uff1a160\u00d7600 \u6574\u5217\u9ad8\u5e7f\u544a -->\r\n  <div style=\"grid-row:3\/8; height:600px;  display:grid; place-items:center;\">\r\n    <!-- JuicyAds v3.0 -->\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\" data-cfasync=\"false\" async src=\"https:\/\/poweredby.jads.co\/js\/jads.js\"><\/script>\r\n<ins id=\"1114301\" data-width=\"160\" data-height=\"600\"><\/ins>\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\" data-cfasync=\"false\" async>(adsbyjuicy = window.adsbyjuicy || []).push({'adzone':1114301});<\/script>\r\n<!--JuicyAds END-->\r\n  <\/div>\r\n\r\n<\/div><br \/>\n<br \/> AI can act exactly like a human, but we still do not think it is conscious<br \/>\n<br \/>#act #human #conscious<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Artificial intelligence can increasingly produce behaviour that appears strikingly human. Yet convincing behaviour is apparently&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23318,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1713,16997,250],"class_list":["post-23317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories","tag-act","tag-conscious","tag-human"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/8657085.xyz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Mask.jpg",1618,910,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/8657085.xyz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Mask-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/8657085.xyz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Mask-300x169.jpg",300,169,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/8657085.xyz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Mask-768x432.jpg",640,360,true],"large":["https:\/\/8657085.xyz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Mask-1024x576.jpg",640,360,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/8657085.xyz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Mask-1536x864.jpg",1536,864,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/8657085.xyz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Mask.jpg",1618,910,false],"covernews-slider-full":["https:\/\/8657085.xyz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Mask-1115x715.jpg",1115,715,true],"covernews-slider-center":["https:\/\/8657085.xyz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Mask-800x500.jpg",800,500,true],"covernews-featured":["https:\/\/8657085.xyz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Mask-1024x576.jpg",1024,576,true],"covernews-medium":["https:\/\/8657085.xyz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Mask-540x340.jpg",540,340,true],"covernews-medium-square":["https:\/\/8657085.xyz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Mask-400x250.jpg",400,250,true]},"author_info":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"https:\/\/8657085.xyz\/?author=1"},"category_info":"<a href=\"https:\/\/8657085.xyz\/?cat=7\" rel=\"category\">Stories<\/a>","tag_info":"Stories","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/8657085.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/8657085.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/8657085.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/8657085.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/8657085.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/8657085.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/8657085.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/8657085.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/8657085.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/8657085.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}