Can AI be conscious?

AI applications have become established in our ever-more digital world. Already integrated in many industries, this technology automates and speeds up work processes, making production more efficient and faster. As chatbots assistants, AI instantly helps us to access humanity's accumulated knowledge on any conceivable topic. Researches are now trying to take so-called artificial intelligence to the next level: to create artifical consciousness by modelling AI on the human brain. However, the question remains: will constantly evolving technology ever become consious like us?

Advait Vedanta would retort with a categorical no because of its perspective on consciousness. Here is how 14th-century sage Vidyaranya defines it: "The principle of consciousness we call kutastha is that which witnesses the interval between the disappearance and the rise of successive modifications within the mind and the period when they do not exist, and which is itself unmodifiable and immutable."

From the perspective of Advait Vedanta, there exists only one consiousness called kutastha, not to be confused with human awareness such as sense perceptions and cognitions. Kutastha is the lamp of pure consciousness beyond any awareness. AI may evolve to a level of sentiency similar to that of humans, but it will never grasp the need for mukti: to realise and abide within the only existing consciousness of Brahmn.


Kutastha, understood as the eternal witness called sakshi, projects its own maya. We are its maya and what we are creating through AI is an illusion. The experience of God lies beyond any sentiency. All that exists is single consciousness called Brahmn.