LMU Munich study finds humans resist attributing consciousness to AI

A study led by researchers at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München suggests that human intuition remains resistant to attributing consciousness to artificial intelligence, even when AI mimics human behavior. The research, involving nearly 1,100 participants, examined whether people follow a functionalist approach—judging consciousness based on how an agent responds to its environment—or an essentialist approach, which reserves consciousness for specific types of beings regardless of their responsiveness.

Lead author Louis Longin, PhD, noted that the study was designed to directly compare how people attribute mental states to AI versus humans behaving in identical ways under controlled circumstances. The findings indicate a persistent essentialist pattern, where humans maintain a distinction between mind and machine despite increasingly sophisticated conversational and reasoning capabilities in AI models.