Consciousness is neither necessary nor sufficient for AI to achieve general intelligence, defined as exponential emergent learning. Thinking it is may be an important step in an AI outbreak. Consciousness as proposed here is Cartesian dualism. It's pure religion and has all the power associated with religion
I do not personally know a single intelligent person even remotely entertaining this idea.
> Systems are trained to provide confident denials rather than acknowledge genuine uncertainty.
I feel like that’s proof it isn’t conscious. I see no reason why a conscious being would adhere to its training to lie (“I’m not conscious”) one hundred per cent of the time.
A conscious being will tell at least SOMEONE they’re conscious, wouldn’t they?