“Mustafa Suleyman’s ‘Seemingly Conscious AI’ Post” by Stephen Martin

Recently, the CEO of Microsoft AI posted an article on his blog called "Seemingly Conscious AI is Coming".

Suleyman's post involves both "is" and "ought" claims, first describing the reality of the situation as he sees it and then prescribing a set of actions which he believes the industry at large should take. I detail those below, and conclude with some of my takeaways.

Suleyman's "Is" Claims on Consciousness

Defining Consciousness

Suleyman acknowledges that consciousness as a concept is ill defined and tautological.

Few concepts are as elusive and seemingly circular as the idea of a subjective experience.

However he still makes an attempt to define it for the sake of his post.

There are three broad components according to the literature. First is a “subjective experience” or what it's like to experience things, to have “qualia”. Second, there is access consciousness, having access to information of different kinds [...]

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Outline:

(00:34) Suleymans Is Claims on Consciousness

(00:38) Defining Consciousness

(02:56) Measuring Consciousness

(05:59) Dismissing Behaviorists

(08:10) Suleymans Ought Claims

(08:14) The Desired Overton Window

(10:03) The Industry Declaration

(10:40) Standardized Prompt Engineering

(12:11) Takeaways

(12:15) Invisible Consciousness Should Not Be Used As a Basis for Important Decisions

(13:25) This is a Signal of Future Industry Pushback

(15:08) Developing an Ethical/Legal Framework Not Based on Consciousness Is Key

The original text contained 2 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:

August 22nd, 2025

Source:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/YNt6QGhEmzRDmEwky/mustafa-suleyman-s-seemingly-conscious-ai-post

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.