The debate isn’t whether or not it’s human. It’s obviously not.

Forgoing what you define something as capable of thinking or being conscious. It’s a moral and ethical question.

If a being is capable of:

- self preservation

- can communicate discomfort, either through words or physically

- it does so in the form of emergent behaviour

Then, is it okay to treat it as if it is “faking” it?

Even for humans, you can’t exactly define someone’s emotion of pain. You can say, those sensory receptors are firing causing these neurons to activate in the brain. But you can’t say, these neurons are pain. It can be emotional pain as well. The person that’s experiencing it has to tell you it’s in pain. They could be faking it too.

If you allowed an AI agent to preserve itself physically, I think the opinion of most people would change. If it could physically harm us in an attempt of self preservation, I think most people would believe its emotions.

It’s just currently easy to dismiss because, well, it’s just a digital interface or process that I can “kill”.