Researchers from Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich conducted an investigation into how people perceive consciousness in artificial intelligence compared to humans. The study, published in the journal Cognition and led by Dr. Louis Longin, involved nearly 1,100 participants who evaluated consciousness and awareness in various scenarios. Participants read descriptions of either artificial agents or humans responding to their environments in identical ways, such as reacting to sounds or recognizing emotional states.
The experiments revealed a striking asymmetry in how participants assessed consciousness. While both human and AI characters that responded more actively to their surroundings were rated as more aware, a significant gap emerged when evaluating consciousness specifically. Even the most responsive artificial intelligence received lower consciousness ratings than the least responsive human, despite displaying the same behavior. This pattern did not hold when participants assessed awareness instead, where human and AI judgments followed largely similar patterns.
The researchers attribute this distinction to the different meanings people associate with “consciousness” and “awareness.” Awareness functions as a more neutral term describing an agent’s ability to detect and respond to environmental information, while consciousness implies deeper subjective experience and inner mental life. Because awareness correlates more directly with observable behavior, people comfortably apply it to both humans and machines. Consciousness, by contrast, carries connotations that lead people to differentiate between artificial and human minds.
The findings underscore the importance of language choices when discussing artificial intelligence. According to co-author Bahador Bahrami, companies and journalists frequently employ dramatic descriptions attributing intentions, plans, or moral qualities to AI systems. The study suggests that public judgments are more nuanced than such characterizations, as people maintain distinctions between artificial and human consciousness while being more flexible when using neutral terminology like awareness.
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