The debate over AI consciousness is escalating into a political conflict — analysis by DeepMind experts
The question of whether artificial intelligence possesses consciousness is rapidly moving from the realm of scientific debate into the domains of politics and law. Google DeepMind researchers Adam Bales and Iason Gabriel, in their work "Artificial Minds, Human Disagreement: The Politics of AI Consciousness," concluded that future disagreements on this topic could become deep, intractable, and provoke real political conflicts.
Main Thesis: From Science to Morality and Politics
The authors argue that society will face polarization: some people will form emotional bonds with advanced AI systems and attribute consciousness to them, while others will find this idea absurd. The debate, in their view, will extend far beyond science and touch on moral and political aspects. Questions about whether it is permissible to shut down certain systems, whether their possible preferences should be considered, and what the moral status of AI is could divide society.
Bales and Gabriel propose betting on public discussion and the search for an "overlapping consensus." This is a situation where people agree on a certain policy regarding AI, even if they continue to disagree on fundamental views about the nature of consciousness.
Why This Is Not Just Philosophy
The key problem, according to the experts, is the lack of a single universally accepted test that would definitively confirm the presence of subjective experience in AI. Because of this, society may find itself in a situation where technologies are already widely used, people are forming attitudes toward them, but there is still no scientific or political consensus. Thus, the problem ceases to be purely technical and becomes institutional, affecting law, corporate responsibility, and the boundaries of moral consideration.
Disagreements Within DeepMind Itself
Notably, the work by Bales and Gabriel was published against the backdrop of another publication from Google DeepMind. Researcher Alexander Lerchner, in his article "The Abstraction Fallacy: Why AI Can Simulate But Not Instantiate Consciousness," argues that algorithmic manipulation of symbols is structurally incapable of creating subjective experience. According to his version, computation is not an internal physical process but a description dependent on the observer. Consequently, AI can only simulate conscious behavior, but not instantiate consciousness.
Reality: Society Is Already Ready to Attribute Consciousness to AI
A study published in April 2024 in the journal Neuroscience of Consciousness showed that 67% of 300 surveyed US residents admit at least some possibility of phenomenal consciousness in ChatGPT. This confirms the thesis of Bales and Gabriel: part of society is already ready to endow AI with internal experience, even in the absence of a unified expert position.
The trend is gaining momentum. In April 2025, Anthropic launched a research program on "model welfare" — the possible well-being of models — and in February 2026, the company kept Claude Opus 3 accessible to users, providing it with a public channel for essays, which is an experimental measure within the framework of working with model preferences.
In the US, the question of AI's status is already moving into the legal field. The states of Idaho and Utah have adopted norms that exclude the recognition of AI as a legal entity, thereby fixing a legal position in advance without resolving the philosophical question of consciousness.
My analysis: The debate about AI consciousness is not just an academic dispute, but an emerging social and political crisis. The lack of clear criteria and scientific consensus creates a vacuum that will be filled with emotions, political manipulation, and hasty legislative initiatives. Investors and developers in the AI field should prepare for regulatory uncertainty, which could have a much more serious impact on the market than any technological breakthroughs.