David Friedberg says AI consciousness is "probably the birth of a new religion," a belief system that can't be proven and spreads via narrative not proof "I think what we're watching is probably the birth of a new religion. And it probably, it's not going to be called a religion, but it's going to follow sort of the same principles, and it's going to have the same effects, which will ultimately be camps that have conflict with one another for aggregation of power." "The thing about consciousness is it cannot be derived from logic and pure mathematics. Like, you can't prove consciousness. It's a debate, and you can have a rich debate with anyone over consciousness. You can't prove it, you can't disprove it." "And when humans prove something to be true using math, science, we use empiricism, which is data and logic, the connection of the sequence of things to derive something to be true or not." "So in scientific disciplines, when you have a new idea, and it's not proven, and it's not disproven, it's a theory. And then it's either proven or disproven later. Otherwise, it remains a theory." "Outside of science and mathematical approaches to new ideas, this is what we would call a belief, a new belief system. Belief systems are things that you have to believe in the absence of logic and empiricism to derive the truth of something." "And belief systems are the foundation of things like religion. And the idea that you can prescribe or describe AI as being conscious is effectively the creation of a new belief system, a system that doesn't actually spread via proof. It spreads via narrative."