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Revisiting Suleyman's "AI is not conscious" article from last month, I was struck by the claim that "a growing body of evidence" suggests consciousness requires life. A "growing body of evidence" - ?

When we say "a growing body of evidence supports Einstein's theory of relativity", we mean physicists measured the positions of the stars and found Einstein's theory predicted them better. The data could have gone either way. It went Einstein's.

In the two links Suleyman provides as support, there is no empirical evidence that points one way or the other. Just philosophizing. There isn't a growing body of evidence, there is a growing body of *arguments*. Which is great! But it isn't evidence.

Also, let's be real: a major reason for the uptick in "AI can't be conscious" arguments is exactly because of the appearance of machines that at least seem to be conscious - i.e. that pass the Turing Test. If there is any empirical evidence here, surely at least *some* goes the other way.

(Side note: both of Suleyman's supportive links for the "growing evidence" claim are from the same author. In fact they have almost the same content. One is an academic paper and the other seems to be a more accessible, expanded version of it.)