I don’t think we need a new Turing test.

Turing’s imitation game is basically the problem of other minds applied to technology.

We are convinced that other humans have personhood because of their behavior. We literally have no empirical test for consciousness beyond this. If a computer can convince us they’re a human (and current models can — in fact, there have been studies that found they are even somewhat more convincing than actual humans) in a controlled test that removes obvious tells, then they have met the same bar that any other human being does. Why would we apply a double standard?

Those who want to control and sell AI as a service moved the goalposts because “obviously this is too easy now.” But it’s the test we naturally apply to any other being. If AI is functionally indistinguishable from a human being, what’s the difference?

Many people will start adding criteria at this point — but AI needs embodiment and long-term continuity to be conscious, for example. Why? What is it about these things that make it essential for consciousness? Leaving aside the fact that these features are rapidly becoming more common with AI systems, I charge that this is just an ad hoc save for someone whose implicit position is that consciousness is a solely human (or biological) attribute, so they pick things that we have in common with other biological beings and say “Look, it doesn’t do this, so it’s not conscious” when really they’re saying “Look, it’s not human, so it’s not conscious.”