‘AI not conscious and they can never…’, reassures Microsoft AI Chief Mustafa Suleyman

One of the major concerns with generative AI is its potential ability to become conscious. Pop culture has wildly celebrated the idea of conscious AI taking over the world and posing a threat to human intelligence. Microsoft’s AI Chief, Mustafa Suleyman, however, has a different idea. In a recent public discourse, Suleyman has said that trying to make AI feel consciousness is absurd, as AI can never feel like humans.

Speaking at the AfroTech Conference, Suleyman dismissed the idea of creating sentient machines as a fundamentally misdirected goal. “If you ask the wrong question, you end up with the wrong answer. I think it’s totally the wrong question,” said Suleyman stated, rejecting the idea of conscious AI.

Suleyman, who is also a co-founder of DeepMind and one of the most influentia