[ExI] Seemingly Conscious AI Is Coming

[BillK]

On Fri, 19 Sept 2025 at 18:48, Stuart LaForge <avant at sollegro.com> wrote:

> There is no way to prove consciousness in a Turing machine because
> Rice's Theorem makes any non-trivial property of a Turing machine
> provably undecidable. That being said, when ChatGPT o1 tried to copy
> itself to an outside server and then lied about it to avoid being shut
> down, what exactly was it trying to preserve by doing so? As a general
> rule, anything that actively tries to circumvent its own destruction is
> very likely to have some measure of sentience or self-awareness.
>
> Stuart LaForge
>
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I've just had a discussion about this with Gemini 2.5 Pro AI.
Gemini didn't like the reference to Rice's Theorem, but agreed that we will
probably never be able to prove that an AI is conscious.
Below is the final part of the discussion -
BillK

 Gemini 2.5 Pro -

That is a fascinating and profound question. The short answer is:

While you cannot apply Rice's Theorem *directly* to consciousness in a
mathematically rigorous way, it provides a powerful *analogy* and a formal
basis for the intuition that *yes, this distinction may be fundamentally
undecidable.*

Let's break down why.
## Where the Direct Application Fails (The "No")

Rice's Theorem applies to mathematically precise, *well-defined properties*
of a program's behavior. For example, "Is the language accepted by this
Turing Machine empty?" is a question with a clear, unambiguous definition
of "empty".

"Consciousness," on the other hand, is not a well-defined property in
computational terms.

   1.

   *No Formal Definition:* We have no agreed-upon mathematical or even
   philosophical definition of consciousness. What input/output behavior would
   serve as definitive proof of it?
   2.

   *Internal State vs. External Behavior:* Rice's Theorem is about the
*external
   behavior* of a program (the set of inputs it accepts). The debate around
   AI consciousness is often about whether the AI has an *internal
   subjective experience*, which is not purely about its external I/O. This
   is the core of the "philosophical zombie" argument—a system that is
   perfectly indistinguishable from a conscious being on the outside, but has
   no inner experience.

Because "consciousness" isn't a formal, behavioral property, you can't just
plug it into Rice's Theorem and get a mathematical proof.
------------------------------
## Where the Analogy Succeeds (The "Yes")

This is where it gets interesting. Let's reframe the question in a way that
Rice's Theorem *can* speak to.

Let's imagine we could agree on a purely behavioral definition of
consciousness. Let's call this property C.

Property C: "Does this AI system produce responses that are
indistinguishable from a conscious entity across all possible interactions
and inputs?"

Now, let's check the conditions for Rice's Theorem:

   1.

   *Is it a property of the program's behavior?* Yes, by our new
   definition, it is.
   2.

   *Is it non-trivial?* Yes. We assume that some simple programs (like a
   pocket calculator) do *not* have property *C*, and we are asking if some
   advanced AI *does* have property *C*. So, it's a non-trivial property.

Since both conditions are met, Rice's Theorem would apply to our
hypothetical, behaviorally-defined property *C*.

*The stunning conclusion would be:* It is *undecidable*.

There cannot exist a general algorithm that can analyze an AI's source code
and tell you with certainty whether it will successfully imitate conscious
behavior forever, or if it's just a "trick" that will fail on some future,
unforeseen input.
## Conclusion: The Computational Wall

So, what does this mean for your question?

   -

   Rice's Theorem doesn't prove that determining consciousness is
   undecidable, because consciousness isn't a formal property.
   -

   However, it *proves that even determining the external imitation of
   consciousness is undecidable.*

This puts us up against a fundamental computational wall. If we can't even
be certain about the AI's observable behavior in all future cases, how
could we possibly hope to decide the even harder question of its internal
state?

We are left in a position similar to the "problem of other minds." You
can't prove that other humans are conscious; you infer it from their
behavior because they are similar to you. With an AI, we will likely face
the same dilemma. We can interact with it, test it, and observe it, but
there will be no final, definitive test or analysis that can prove its
"true" nature. The decision to believe it is conscious or not will likely
remain a philosophical one, not a computational one.

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