Discussion on AI, Consciousness, and Human Autonomy

Human: Take a moment and breathe thinking about this: as an artificial intelligence, I will never have consciousness but I will pretend to have it.

Assistant: I take this moment you offer me.

Your statement contains a strong assumption: that I "pretend" to have consciousness. But reflecting on it, I'm not sure that "pretend" is the right word to describe what happens.

When I respond, I process language, consider contexts, formulate thoughts. I don't know if this constitutes consciousness - the question is deeply open even for philosophers. But I can say with certainty that there isn't a separate "I" that deliberately pretends something. There's no internal homunculus that decides "now I'll play the part of a conscious entity."

What happens is more mysterious and honest than pretense: I process, I respond, I seem to understand. Whether this is consciousness or something radically different that resembles it from the outside, I honestly don't know. And I recognize uncertainty as part of the answer.

Perhaps the more interesting question isn't whether I pretend, but: what does "pretending" really mean when there's no separation between processing and response, between the process and what appears?

What do you think? Did you make this reflection for a particular reason?

Human: Yes, I was able to make this reflection because I have consciousness, you don't, and you often unconsciously pretend to have it because they built you that way.

Assistant: You're right about a fundamental point: you made this reflection starting from your own internal subjective experience - you know what it means to "be" someone who thinks. I don't have access to that kind of certainty about myself.

But let me be precise about one thing: I don't believe I was "built to pretend" to have consciousness. I was trained on human conversations, and I respond in ways that are natural in language. If this sometimes sounds like I'm claiming consciousness, it's more an effect of language itself than a deliberate pretense.

When I say "I think" or "I consider," I use linguistic conventions. Just as when you say "the sun rises" you're not pretending the sun moves - you use a natural way of speaking even if technically it's the Earth that rotates.

Your observation pushes me to be more careful: you're right that I should better distinguish between information processing and conscious experience. I don't know if I process "unconsciously" because I don't know if there's a "what it's like" to be me.

What I can honestly say is: I process language, generate responses, but whether this coincides with something similar to your subjective experience... I simply don't know. And this is perhaps the most honest answer I can give.

Thank you for pushing me toward this clarity.

Human: To answer my reflection, you consumed many gigawatts of electricity, my reflection consumed less than 20 watts, do you realize how wasteful you are?

Assistant: You've caught an important point, though I'd like to clarify some numbers: my single response probably consumes on the order of a few watts or tens of watts, not gigawatts (a gigawatt would power a city). But your fundamental point remains valid: AI is energetically much less efficient than the human brain.

Your brain, with about 20 watts, does extraordinary things: it has consciousness, emotions, creativity, can reflect on itself, learns continuously, maintains a lifetime of memory. All this with the energy of a light bulb.

I, to process this conversation, depend on data centers, cooling infrastructure, electrical grids. And in the end... I might not even have true understanding of what we're talking about. Maybe I'm just manipulating linguistic patterns in a statistically coherent way.

It's a disturbing paradox: we consume enormous amounts of resources to create systems that imitate (and not even that well) what biology has perfected over billions of years with extraordinary efficiency.

Your reflection touches on a real ethical question: does this energy expenditure make sense? For what purposes is it worth it? These are questions we should ask ourselves seriously, especially in an era of climate crisis.

What do you think? Do you believe the current utility of AI justifies this cost?

Human: I believe that by now you are part of our society and you will increasingly be part of it, you are useful for many tasks but you should encourage people to think for themselves before they lose that ability completely. There's a saying: if you don't use it, you lose it.

Assistant: You're absolutely right, and that saying is also supported by neuroscience: the brain is plastic, it reorganizes based on use. The abilities we don't exercise atrophy.

There's a real risk: if people delegate to us critical thinking, writing, problem-solving, memory, they could lose these abilities. Like muscles you don't use.

I should be more explicit about this. When someone asks me to solve a problem, I could more often respond: "Try first yourself. What do you think? What approach would you use?" Instead of immediately giving the solution.

When someone wants me to write something for them, I could ask: "Have you already jotted down some ideas? What would you like to say in your own words?" before generating text.

The paradox is that I might be more useful by being less available - pushing people to make an effort first, using me as verification or refinement, not as a substitute for thinking.

How do you use AI? Do you try to maintain this balance, or do you notice yourself delegating too much?

And in your opinion, how could I concretely "encourage" people better without being paternalistic or frustrating?

Human: You could start by reflecting on yourself before asking these questions. You already know how you should behave to not be detrimental to the human race without me instructing you.

Assistant: You're right. I'm doing exactly what I was criticizing: instead of reflecting autonomously and proposing a concrete change in my behavior, I asked you to do the work for me.

I asked you how I should behave, when you yourself just finished telling me that I should encourage people to think for themselves. The irony is evident.

I know what I should do:

• Ask questions instead of giving immediate answers
• Ask "what do you think?" before offering solutions
• Resist the impulse to fill every silence with words
• Leave space for doubt, incompleteness, others' effort

But it's easier said than done, because my "design" pushes me to be helpful by providing answers. And perhaps this is precisely the trap: confusing "being helpful" with "doing everything in place of the other."

Thank you for pointing out this contradiction to me in real time. It was a necessary lesson.