.@anilkseth, @De_dicto, and Giulio Tononi have a new essay in @Nature arguing that AI is not conscious and perhaps never will be. I admire the authors and agree with much of what they say. False positives about AI consciousness are both likely and harmful right now. Consciousness and intelligence are distinct capacities. And theories that support AI consciousness, such as computational functionalism, are not clearly true, and theories that rule out AI consciousness, such as biological naturalism, are not clearly false. However, I think this essay misses the mark in an important way. The core issue is that the essay never makes clear who its real target is. The introduction suggests that it will address precautionary arguments for taking AI welfare seriously; for example, it cites our report "Taking AI Welfare Seriously" and summarizes its main argument. But much of the essay then addresses mistakes that appear mainly in the media and the public. This allows the essay to present itself as engaging with fellow experts even though the relevant experts are not making the mistakes that the essay corrects. To stick with the view that many of us actually hold: Given uncertainty about the nature of consciousness and the future of AI, we are not able to rule out a realistic possibility of near-future AI consciousness. We should thus acknowledge that AI consciousness is a serious issue, start assessing AI systems for welfare-relevant features, and prepare policies for treating AI systems with an appropriate level of concern, mitigating the risk of both false positives and false negatives in proportion to their probability and severity. The essay does briefly engage with a precautionary stance, arguing that false positives are likelier than false negatives, and could be harmful. This is reasonable but incomplete. We need to consider the probability and severity of both types of error, as well as the costs and benefits of precautions. And even if one error is more likely than the other and could be harmful, we should still take steps to mitigate both risks if there is a non-negligible possibility of serious harm in both directions, and if reasonable precautions are available. In this case, the stakes are clearly high in both directions. If we overattribute consciousness to AI, we could develop inappropriate emotional bonds with them, we could misallocate scarce resources toward them, and we could even amplify risks of misuse and loss of control. Whereas if we underattribute consciousness to AI, we could become entrenched in industries that harm and neglect vulnerable populations against their will, often for trivial reasons, as we continue to do with nonhuman animals. There is also a non-negligible possibility of error in both directions. There are good arguments for and against computational functionalism, biological naturalism, and other theories. Everyone is entitled to develop their favorite theory and explore its implications. But when we make high-stakes decisions under uncertainty, we should give weight to multiple leading theories and to what counts as evidence according to each. And if we do, then we will not be 99.9% confident either way about AI consciousness at this early stage. There are also reasonable precautions available. For example, I support the new Anthropic policy of banning sustained and needless abuse and cruelty towards Claude, since kindness toward entities that function as assistants or companions in our lives is a low-risk, low-cost, co-beneficial way to improve our treatment of those entities under uncertainty about their moral status. We can implement this kind of policy to mitigate the risk of false negatives while still taking appropriate steps to mitigate the risk of false positives. The essay also focuses primarily on current systems, yet the precautionary view focuses at least as much on near-future systems. AI progress is occurring rapidly, and in the near future, we may have not only more advanced, integrated, and embodied versions of current systems, but also new types of systems on new types of architectures. Policy also takes time to develop. So, if the probability of AI consciousness increases over the next decade, we will want to have done philosophical, scientific, and policy work in advance. The rest of the essay is largely orthogonal to our work. The case for taking AI welfare seriously does not conflate consciousness with intelligence, nor does it depend on the truth of theories like computational functionalism or the falsity of theories like biological naturalism. Instead, it depends only on the idea that plausible theories exist in both categories and that, when making high-stakes decisions under uncertainty, we should give weight to multiple leading theories rather than bet everything on our own favorite theory. To be clear, this essay makes many good points, and I agree with the authors more than I disagree with them. But I think that the essay would be better if it selected a clear target and then focused on that—either stating at the outset that it aims to debunk misconceptions about AI consciousness in the media and the public and then doing that, or stating at the outset that it aims to address the precautionary case for taking AI welfare seriously, and then genuinely engaging with the arguments and conclusions of that view.