Who believes that artificial intelligence can be conscious?

Ingo Giebel
Ingo.Giebel@hhu.de

Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf

July 16, 2025

Scan & join the survey!

QR-Code Alpha Auriga

or open → https://alpha-auriga.netlify.app

Why ask about AI consciousness?

  • Media hype precedes evidence: Scientific American describes Grok 4 as taking on “Humanity’s Last Exam”, hinting at near-human abilities (Béchard, n.d.).
  • Public belief is measurable: an Forbes article reports that two-thirds of Americans think generative AI such as ChatGPT is conscious (Eliot, n.d.).
  • Scholarship calls for data: a 2025 review article in Trends in Cognitive Sciences urges systematic surveys of lay intuitions about AI consciousness (Caviola et al., 2025).

Cartoon meme: a puzzled scientist faces a smiling robot with a glowing brain. Created by ChatGPT o3.

The survey design

  • Platform: An interactive, bilingual website with a speculative timeline and an AI chatbot to provide context.
  • Data collection: An anonymous survey collecting views on AI consciousness, correlated with key demographic factors.
  • Analysis: An initial descriptive analysis of the data is complete, including freetext answers. Inferential statistics will be applied once a larger dataset is available to identify significant predictors.

Cartoon meme: A friendly, slightly retro-styled robot holds a clipboard and pen, looking expectantly at a puzzled human. The robot’s thought bubble contains charts and graphs, while the human’s has a question mark, illustrating the survey process. Created by Gemini 2.5 Flash.

Not a debate, but data

Cartoon meme: A person shrugging dismissively while standing next to a globe with various global problems drawn on it. Quote inspired by Morrissey’s tenth solo studio album “World Peace Is None of Your Business”, released on 15 July 2014. Created by Gemini 2.5 Flash.

This survey aims to understand public perception, not to argue or convince.

Live presentation of the website

Open → https://alpha-auriga.netlify.app

Cartoon presenter pointing at the AI consciousness survey screen. Created by ChatGPT o3.

Early survey results

  • Small sample so far: 9 participants
  • Diverse range of responses
  • Several intriguing free-text comments
  • Almost no respondents over 50 years

Live dashboard

Researcher inspecting a small, diverse group through a magnifying glass, with a larger crowd in the background. Created by ChatGPT o3.

Join the conversation: Live demo & discussion

Live dashboard

From concept to code: Building Alpha Auriga

  • Netlify for hosting, HTTPS, and automated CI/CD
  • Google Firestore NoSQL database for survey data
  • Pages written in Quarto, rendered to HTML + CSS
  • Go serverless functions on Netlify for data writes and hooks
  • JavaScript for interactive UI and chatbot widget
  • Python (Pandas + Altair) for live results dashboard
  • Bash build scripts
  • Git with GitHub for version control and collaboration
  • IDEs used: RStudio, GoLand, VS Code, PyCharm
  • ChatGPT Plus and Gemini Pro for code, content, and image generation

The road ahead

  • Dedicated page on the evolution and current state of AI technology
  • Page exploring philosophy and ethics in their historical context
  • Extras such as learning apps on selected topics
  • Detailed implementation plan for the new features
  • Ongoing code maintenance and documentation
    • TODO list for adding another language
    • TODO list for building a similar website
  • Further statistical analyses, automated every three months
  • Autonomous AI agents to promote the survey
  • Detailed design roadmap for implementing ASI

Questions?

References

Béchard, D. E. (n.d.). Elon musk’s new grok 4 takes on “humanity’s last exam” as the AI race heats up. Scientific american. Retrieved July 16, 2025, from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/elon-musks-new-grok-4-takes-on-humanitys-last-exam-as-the-ai-race-heats-up/
Blockchain & generative AI: Fueling innovation within digital economy. (2024, October 24). https://proveai.com/news/blockchain-and-generative-ai-fueling-innovation-within-the-digital-economy
Brain organoid computing – an overview. (n.d.). Retrieved May 22, 2025, from https://arxiv.org/html/2503.19770v1
Caviola, L., Sebo, J., & Birch, J. (2025). What will society think about AI consciousness? Lessons from the animal case. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2025.06.002
Eliot, L. (n.d.). Why americans believe that generative AI such as ChatGPT has consciousness. Forbes. Retrieved July 16, 2025, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/lanceeliot/2024/07/18/why-americans-believe-that-generative-ai-such-as-chatgpt-has-consciousness/
Exponential growth. The science of machine learning & AI. (n.d.). Retrieved May 22, 2025, from https://www.ml-science.com/exponential-growth
Multi-agent embodied AI: Advances and future directions. (n.d.). Retrieved May 22, 2025, from https://arxiv.org/html/2505.05108v1
Smirnova, L., Caffo, B. S., Gracias, D. H., Huang, Q., Morales Pantoja, I. E., Tang, B., Zack, D. J., Berlinicke, C. A., Boyd, J. L., Harris, T. D., Johnson, E. C., Kagan, B. J., Kahn, J., Muotri, A. R., Paulhamus, B. L., Schwamborn, J. C., Plotkin, J., Szalay, A. S., Vogelstein, J. T., … Hartung, T. (2023). Organoid intelligence (OI): The new frontier in biocomputing and intelligence-in-a-dish. Frontiers in Science, 1. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsci.2023.1017235