The (Non-)Replicability of Consciousness: Ethical and Scientific Challenges in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

The contemporary debate on whether consciousness an be replicated by emerging technologies necessarily encompasses ethical, philosophical, technical, and legal questions. The principal arguments against the replicability of consciousness can be traced to three interconnected issues: the enduring problem of mind–body dualism; the irreducibility of subjective experience, understood as first-person awareness; and the distinction between simulating consciousness and genuinely duplicating it. Even if such replication were deemed theoretically possible, a series of further questions would arise. Should a putatively conscious artefact be entitled to legal protection? Who would bear responsibility for its actions or decisions? Could an artificially generated experience ever be considered as authentic as a human one? And, perhaps most importantly, would such developments risk diminish the normative status and intrinsic uniqueness traditionally attributed to human beings?