The Copernican Argument for Alien Consciousness; The Mimicry Argument Against Robot Consciousness

Abstract

On broadly Copernican grounds, we are entitled to assume that apparently behaviorally sophisticated extraterrestrial entities ("aliens") would be conscious. Otherwise, we humans would be inexplicably, implausibly lucky to have consciousness, while similarly behaviorally sophisticated entities elsewhere would be mere shells, devoid of consciousness. However, this Copernican default assumption is canceled in the case of behaviorally sophisticated entities designed to mimic superficial features associated with consciousness ("consciousness mimics"), and in particular a broad class of current, near-future, and hypothetical robots. These considerations, which we formulate, respectively, as the Copernican and Mimicry Arguments, jointly defeat an otherwise potentially attractive parity principle, according to which we should apply the same types of behavioral or cognitive tests to aliens and robots, attributing or denying consciousness similarly to the extent they perform similarly. Our approach is unusual in the following respect: Instead of grounding speculations about alien and robot consciousness in a particular metaphysical or scientific theory about the physical or functional bases of consciousness, we appeal directly to the epistemic principles of Copernican mediocrity and inference to the best explanation.