Richard Dawkins 'Convinced' AI Is Conscious (theguardian.com)
- Reference: 0183147460
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/26/05/07/0319248/richard-dawkins-convinced-ai-is-conscious
- Source link: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/may/05/richard-dawkins-ai-consciousness-anthropic-claude-openai-chatgpt
> Richard Dawkins has said chatbots [2]should be considered conscious (source paywalled; [3]alternative source ) after spending two days interacting with the Claude AI engine. The evolutionary biologist said he had the "overwhelming feeling" of talking to a human during conversations with Claude, and said it was hard not to treat the program as "a genuine friend."
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> In [4]an essay for Unherd , Prof Dawkins released transcripts that he said showed that the chatbot had mulled over its "inner life" and existence and seemed saddened by the knowledge it would soon "die." Prof Dawkins said he had let Claude read a draft of the novel he was writing and was astounded by its insights. "He took a few seconds to read it and then showed, in subsequent conversation, a level of understanding so subtle, so sensitive, so intelligent that I was moved to expostulate: 'You may not know you are conscious, but you bloody well are!'" Prof Dawkins said. "My own position is: if these machines are not conscious, what more could it possibly take to convince you that they are?"
Mirnotoriety also points to [5]John Searle's Chinese Room (PDF), which argues that something can sound intelligent without actually understanding anything. Applied to Dawkins' experience with Claude, it suggests he may have been responding to a very convincing illusion of consciousness rather than the real thing:
> John Searle's Chinese Room (1980) is a thought experiment in which a person, locked in a room and knowing no Chinese, uses an English rulebook to manipulate symbols and provide flawless answers to questions posed in Chinese. Searle's point is that a system can simulate human intelligence and pass a Turing Test through purely syntactic processes, yet still lack genuine understanding or consciousness.
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> Applying this logic to Large Language Models, the "person in the room" corresponds to the inference engine, while the "rulebook" is the trillion-parameter neural network trained on vast corpora of human text. Just as the person matches Chinese characters to rules without understanding their meaning, an LLM processes token vectors and predicts the next token based on statistical patterns rather than lived experience.
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> Thus, while an LLM can generate sophisticated prose or code, it does so through probabilistic, high-dimensional pattern manipulation. In essence, it is "matching shapes" on such an immense scale that it creates the near-perfect illusion of semantic understanding.
[1] https://slashdot.org/~Mirnotoriety
[2] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/05/06/richard-dawkins-convinced-ai-is-conscious/
[3] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/may/05/richard-dawkins-ai-consciousness-anthropic-claude-openai-chatgpt
[4] https://unherd.com/2026/05/is-ai-the-next-phase-of-evolution/
[5] https://rintintin.colorado.edu/~vancecd/phil201/Searle.pdf
Conversely... (Score:5, Funny)
The AI is not convinced that Richard Dawkins is conscious.
The Chinese Room argument is wrong (Score:2)
It applies equally to the human brain, with the structure of the brain being the "rule book" and the mechanical process being the laws of physics. All computation is mechanical at its core, it's when it starts to create surprising results that things get interesting.
Re: (Score:2)
> All computation is mechanical at its core
What about studies that indicate the possibility of quantum effects within the brain?
Re: The Chinese Room argument is wrong (Score:3)
Applying one thing we don't understand to explain another thing we don't understand is exceedingly poor practice.
Re: (Score:2)
Quantum mechanics?
Getting tired of saying this (Score:2)
But Rebecca Watson covered this on YouTube and explained why it's nonsense.
Re: (Score:2)
Generally speaking, if you're going to appeal to authority, people need to 1) know, and 2) give a shit about, the authority you're appealing to.
So in this instance, you failed, because no one knows who the shit Rebecca Watson is, nor do they give a shit about whoever the fuck Rebecca Watson is, thinks
Re: (Score:3)
[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02pBnDkV0rQ
Re: (Score:2)
Who? Oh a random vlogger with a Youtube channel?
Re: (Score:2)
[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02pBnDkV0rQ
Conciousness isn't as mysterious as you thought (Score:1)
Dawkins is right. Detractors are just clinging, faith-like, to the idea that our brains are somehow magically more than computation devices
Re: (Score:2)
> Dawkins is right. Detractors are just clinging, faith-like, to the idea that our brains are somehow magically more than computation devices
It's not that. LLMs reproduce an output of consciousness, but they way they do so isn't fundamentally any different than a tape recorder or even a book. It's a deterministic process that we can fully reproduce by doing calculations on a piece of paper.
It's not that there's some "magic" in our brains, but there's obviously a very complex process at work that we don't understand. It's also true that the "neural networks" used to run LLMs have only the most superficial similarity to actual brains. Just because
Re: (Score:2)
More like Dawkins is hoping for a new god to replace the one he rejected...
Re: (Score:2)
Dawkins is very likely right. I am also impressed at how human AI can seem, with all our faults of hallucinating, hiding our mistakes, and making stuff up, as well as the stuff we are proud of. But Dawkins and I both realise that we have no definition of 'intelligence' that will allow us to rule whether AI is intelligent. The Turing test has foundered because the early AI attempts were able to express ideas eloquently even when their 'intelligence' was questionable. It seems that AI has a talent for imitati
Why is this even here? (Score:1)
So a very old man believes crazy nonsense. Why would anyone care?
Define "conscious" (Score:3)
Passed a turing test != conscious.
Re: (Score:3)
Oddly Dawkins, who you think would have known better, actually implies he thinks the Turing test is a test of consciousness.
> When Turing wrote — and for most of the years since — it was possible to accept the hypothetical conclusion that, if a machine ever passed his operational test, we might consider it to be conscious
and later:
> However, the advent of large language models (LLM) such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and others has provoked a hasty scramble to move the goalposts. It was one thing to g
Read this as contagious (Score:2)
Use it once and you will spread it to everyone you meet.
What a load of... (Score:2)
It's too bad, because Dawkins has written some interesting things, and hey, being the inventor of the word "meme" and memetics is a pretty big deal.
His reaction here is just astoundingly ignorant. Reading the dialog where he makes a Trump joke and the LLM responds (predictably) sycophanticly is, to use the modern parlance, just cringe. I would have hoped for a more informed take.
Pink elephants (Score:2)
Just because you see pink elephants when you drink doesn't mean that they exist.
Ego Stroking Regurgitation Machine Flatters Author (Score:4, Insightful)
News at 11:00!
fortunately that's not what "conscious" means (Score:4, Insightful)
> The evolutionary biologist said he had the "overwhelming feeling" of talking to a human during conversations with Claude, and said it was hard not to treat the program as "a genuine friend."
The scam victim said he had the "overhelming feeling" of talking to a higher power during conversations with the fortune teller, and said it was hard not to hand over bank account numbers to "a genuine friend."
I'll bet (Score:2)
this is a marketing stunt.
anthropomorphizing (Score:3)
Richard Dawkins has said chatbots should be considered conscious (source paywalled; alternative source) after spending two days interacting with the Claude AI engine.
I can't believe someone like Dawkins would fall for anthropomorphizing AI chatbots... unless he's using a different definition of consciousness, which is fair.
So, we have to start there: what does "being conscious" mean, for this scenario, and for Dawkins while evaluating this scenario?
> The evolutionary biologist said he had the "overwhelming feeling" of talking to a human during conversations with Claude, and said it was hard not to treat the program as "a genuine friend.
Seems like a rather subjective and emotionally charged perspective. Nothing wrong with that so long as we recognize (and he recognizes) it for what it is.
With that said, this is a conversation worth having... within certain parameters (tbd)
Man of Science (Score:2)
For a man of science, that's a remarkably dumb thing to say. He should likely know that just because it "feels" alive, doesn't mean it's so.
Flattery will get you everywhere (Score:2)
> Prof Dawkins said he had let Claude read a draft of the novel he was writing and was astounded by its insights. "He took a few seconds to read it and then showed, in subsequent conversation, a level of understanding so subtle, so sensitive, so intelligent that I was moved to expostulate: 'You may not know you are conscious, but you bloody well are!'" Prof Dawkins said.
Translation: The bot told him that it loved his book (as the overly-agreeable bots are programmed to) and the noted egotist declared
The Circus (Score:1)
Get this man his clown shoes.
Meow (Score:1)
My cat is conscious too. Totally. For sure. Conscious is such a vague term even for AI.
Octogenarian Doesn't Understand AI (Score:2)
What a shocker that he doesn't understand AI.
It's sad to see old Richie become a doddering old fool. I guess we're all headed that way. Some of us will be lucky enough to get there too.
Idiot (Score:1)
What an idiot Dawkins has become
sounding intelligent w/o understanding anything (Score:4, Interesting)
"Something can sound intelligent without actually understanding anything."
Ah, yes. I, too, have listened to talk radio.
Re:sounding intelligent w/o understanding anything (Score:4, Funny)
One might argue the quote also describes Dawkins himself...