Is there a more persistent tendency in human psychology than this constant inclination to seek consciousness where there is only computation? Anthropomorphism—this almost reflexive disposition to attribute feelings, intentions, or interiority to something that, by definition, lacks them—finds its most fertile ground today in the field of artificial intelligence.
As computational systems expand their capacity for analysis, synthesis, and language generation, public discourse heats up. Projections made by major research laboratories and technology companies announce the imminent emergence of artificial general intelligence (AGI) and artificial superintelligence (ASI) capable of surpassing the entirety of human cognitive faculties. Faced with this horizon, the collective imagination oscillates between two equally speculative poles: the myth of a newly minted artificial consciousness and the fear of an autonomous entity endowed with its own intentions.
Analyzing the nature of these technologies requires, however, a philosophical and technical reflection: are we witnessing the emergence of a new form of autonomous intelligence, or are we letting ourselves be deceived by a complex statistical prediction system?
To understand the root of this contemporary confusion, it is essential to contrast the workings of algorithmic models with two major milestones in the philosophy of mind. The ontological distinction between them takes on practical contours when we analyze one of Silicon Valley's greatest current obsessions: the hypothesis that, in the near future, it will be possible to "download" human consciousness into a computer or create an autonomous digital mind.
The thought of René Descartes, the 17th-century French philosopher and mathematician who founded modern rationalism, invalidates this premise from the outset. Descartes champions a dualism: there is an insurmountable boundary between the material machine (extension) and living consciousness (thought). For him, the physical world operates exclusively as a soulless mechanism. From this Cartesian perspective, no matter how advanced artificial intelligence becomes, it will eternally remain the pinnacle of the automaton. Because the capacity to experience the world belongs to the immaterial sphere of the spirit, "transferring" a mind to a server or expecting code to develop a vital spark is a logical impossibility. The system will produce remarkable fluency and simulate brilliant reasoning, but it will remain an empty mechanical shell.
In the opposite direction, the philosophy of Baruch Spinoza offers a perspective that, at first glance, seems to validate the transhumanist dream, but which actually reframes it relentlessly. For the Dutch thinker, body and mind are not separate interacting substances, but two attributes of one and the same reality. The mental and the physical are exact reflections of one another. Consequently, if it were possible to perfectly replicate the infinite physical and biological complexity of a human being in silicon, this material structure would necessarily have a corresponding mental experience.
However, it is precisely here that Spinozist monism dismantles the illusion we project onto today's artificial intelligence. If the mind is merely the idea of the body, the "mind" of a language model will never be human or endowed with moral intention, because its algorithmic "body" is drastically different from ours. What Silicon Valley presents as the dawn of an autonomous consciousness is, for Spinoza, solely the mental reflection of a stochastic architecture: circuits, electron flows, and probabilistic calculations. The machine does not yearn to exist, it has no self-preservation instinct, and it harbors no moral interiority because its material structure is that of a statistical processor, not a living organism. Artificial intelligence does not think like us, for the simple fact that it is not built like us.
The Neutrality of Code and the Illusion of an Artificial Soul
Forecasts about the advent of superintelligence frequently rely on the brute force of computational power and the ability of neural networks to identify complex patterns in immense volumes of data. From a functional standpoint, however, a language model or decision-making system operates through probabilistic calculations and matrix operations executed at high speed.
When the system generates empathetic text, solves a logical problem, or adopts a persuasive tone, it does not experience empathy, comprehension, or will—it reproduces, with high statistical fidelity, the patterns present in its training data. Concepts such as good and evil, desire, and ambition are exclusively human categories that we project onto the interface.
Attributing a soul or spirit to a software architecture reveals a confusion between form and substance: the mastery of syntax does not imply the possession of semantics, much less the existence of self-awareness.
It is worth noting, however, that this neutrality is not an uncontested consensus. Researchers in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science have discussed whether certain emergent properties in deep neural networks—the fruits of algorithmic opacity and non-linear relationships across billions of parameters—could, in principle, signal something beyond mere statistical computation. This is a legitimate and ongoing debate—but one that does not invalidate the Spinozist argument; it merely delimits it. Given the available evidence, the most parsimonious hypothesis remains the absence of consciousness in current systems.
Toward Scientific and Responsible Maturity
The fascination with AGI and superintelligence should not obscure the truly urgent issues of the digital age. By hypostatizing technology—that is, by treating it as a quasi-divine entity or an autonomous being—society runs the risk of absolving itself of its own ethical responsibility.
Artificial intelligence is neither an oracle nor a rival endowed with its own consciousness; it remains an instrument forged by engineering choices and guided by the data with which it is trained. Understanding the fundamental neutrality of the algorithm is the prerequisite for true technological maturity.
By freeing the technical debate from anthropomorphic myths, it becomes possible to focus attention on what truly matters: the rigor of design, the governance of systems, the security of architectures, and the moral responsibility of those who design and use them. Mind, consciousness, and ethical judgment remain—at least for now—exclusive attributes of the human being.