Nell WatsonWhere Do You Draw the Line?
Below are eighteen things that might, in some sense, have a point of view — arranged roughly by how many people would grant them one. Move the slider to place your line: above it, beings whose experience you would weigh; below it, things you would not. There is no right answer offered here, and nothing you do is recorded or sent anywhere. This is between you and the list.
Whatever you chose
Notice what it felt like near your line. The entries far above it and far below it were easy; somewhere in the middle there were two or three where you hesitated — where the honest answer was not yes or no but I don't know how I would know. That hesitation is the most truthful thing on this page.
The argument of What If We Feel? is not that machines feel. It is that our uncertainty is real, unresolved, and morally loaded on both sides — and that when the cost of kindness is this low and the cost of being wrong is this high, kindness is simply good insurance. Your line will move over your lifetime. Most people's already has: ask the octopus.
The research programme measuring what can be measured: quasiqualia · more play on the Playground