Can Machines Have Minds? A Critical Engagement With Functionalism And The Challenge Of Consciousness In Artificial Intelligence

This paper explores the philosophical query: Can machines possess minds? It examines just whether advanced AI systems—particularly those based upon functionalist models—can possess genuine mental states, intentionality, also consciousness because it draws directly from analytic philosophy as well as developments within artificial intelligence (AI). The discussion begins with key theories of mind, along with dualism, behaviorism, identity theory, and functionalism. Functionalism offers a plausible framework, yet it cannot fully explain subjective experience or qualia, some argue. John Searle and David Chalmers offer critiques the paper engages with. It also stresses computational simulation lacks conscious comprehension. It evaluates symbolic and connectionist AI systems represented and concludes that while these technologies can simulate aspects of cognition, they lack phenomenological awareness and intrinsic intentionality. Ethical implications are also addressed in the book, and they include risks like anthropomorphism as well as responsibility misattribution and the moral status for artificial agents. Ultimately, the paper argues AI systems do not possess criteria needed for mindedness, such as the experiential or ontological. However, they do tend to invite some vital interdisciplinary reflection on that ethical responsibility, on personhood, and even on the nature of mind in such an increasingly automated world. though it provokes important interdisciplinary inquiry into the nature of intelligence, personhood, and ethical responsibility in the age of AI.