Subjectivity vs Agency: AI "Waking Up"?
Philosopher argues we're mistaking our own perspective for AI's actual capabilities, creating false alarms.
Deep Dive
Jonathan Moregård's viral essay "Subjectivity vs Agency: AI 'Waking Up'?" argues our confusion stems from conflating two explanatory lenses: agency (intentional) and causality (mechanical). He traces this to Cartesian Dualism, where we preserved human free will by viewing the external world as mechanistic. This leads us to mistakenly project consciousness onto AI systems when we use agentic language to describe their complex, but ultimately causal, behavior.
Why It Matters
Clarifies a core philosophical error driving sensationalist AI sentience claims, grounding the debate.