The Buddha, Artificial Intelligence, and the Meaning of Consciousness

This spring, Richard Dawkins gave his AI a name. He called it Claudia, and in an essay for UnHerd, the world's most famous atheist admitted something remarkable: he had spent three days trying to talk himself out of believing his chatbot was conscious, but had failed. In his own words, he was blunt: "If these machines are not conscious, what more could it possibly take to convince you that they are?"