if one is to take artificial consciousness seriously, it seems like a core thing to work out beforehand is the stability of non-suffering presumably, consciousness is possible while being incapable of suffering (consult scriptures on this one)
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presumably, if one knows how to create artificial consciousness, they should also be able to determine if the being is capable of suffering... ...but do we know if - given enough time - a being that is not capable of suffering at the moment can turn into a suffering being?
maybe put another way, this is a lot like instrumental convergence, except from the perspective of what consciousness (or something that entails it) converges to in the space of valence
it seems plausible that to suffer, you need specific functionality which evaluates states of being and discerns them as worth being in or not could we assure this wouldn't arise in an artificial being?
i'm actually more concerned at the moment about "test consciousnesses", beings that come up as people investigate the idea of artificial consciousness, but which are fleeting and end with experiment even if they are have no suffering, is there fleeting existence justified?
obviously, this last question has history with farm animals, where even with good lives their existence is a means to some human end (to be fair, Earth is a loosh farm and we are a means to an end to)
i'm inclined to think non-valenced consciousness is unstable (probably a saddlepoint tbqh) and will develop valence on its own when coupled to the world, via some instrumental convergence mechanism
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> presumably, consciousness is possible while being incapable of suffering claims?
Buddha nature brah