Consciousness is often touted as the defining trait that distinguishes humans from our fellow animals. Yet, consciousness is an immensely murky concept. Despite centuries of inquiry, there is still no consensus on what it is, or even where it begins and ends. As Tok Thompson, professor (teaching) of anthropology, says, “Nobody’s seen it, nobody’s touched it, so how different is it from the mystical concept of ‘the soul’?”

It’s such an exasperating tangle that some philosophers call consciousness the “hard problem.” It’s not getting any easier.

Robust intelligence and language skills are generally considered core markers of consciousness, yet researchers are increasingly finding these traits among non-human animals. Artificial intelligence passes both those tests with ease. Does the definition of humanity need an update?

All Creatures Great and Small

The intellect of animals like dolphins and apes has long challenged our exclusive claim to consciousness. Dolphins call each other by name and can recognize themselves in mirrors earlier than human children. Some apes make simple tools, similar to our own. And scientists recently discovered that bonobos may be able to recognize when humans are confused, stepping in to assist.

Even less advanced organisms surprise us. A single-celled, brainless slime mold (Physarum polycephalum) can solve mazes. And growing research on animal intelligence continues to lead to startling discoveries, such as the capacity for play and distinctive personalities of octopi — traits that led the United Kingdom to recently reclassify the eight-armed mollusks as “sentient.”

Our own thoughts are also not entirely our own. The millions of microorganisms residing in our gut have been found to shape our mood. So do other organisms. Thompson is currently researching toxoplasma gondii, a neurological parasite that infects about a third of the world’s population and changes the temperament of its host.

“When I say, ‘I think x,’ this ‘I’ is composed of a vast chorus of agents,” says Thompson, author of Posthuman Folklore, which explores the meaning of “human.”

Can You Feel It?

Now, AI is adding a new level of complexity to defining personhood. AI has reportedly passed the Turing Test, once considered the gold standard for identifying robots. Large Language Models like ChatGPT have outperformed nearly 90% of human test-takers on medical licensing exams and the bar exam.

But is artificial intelligence truly intelligent? “There is a lot of dispute about how intelligent it is, whether it is actually thinking and reasoning,” says Jake Monaghan, assistant professor of philosophy. “At least some models don’t do arithmetic, but oddly ‘guess’ at the solution to a long division problem. So, whatever is going on, it’s very different from human cognition.”

That’s because AI doesn’t think like we do — it computes, notes Thompson. True thinking is biological: Billions of physical neurons and synapses processing thoughts. The same goes for emoting.

“AI can’t feel, because feeling is based on biological hormones like dopamine and serotonin. AI may — and often does — say that it ‘likes’ or ‘loves’ people, but this is a lie, told without a twinge of guilt,” says Thompson.

“I suspect that AI will satisfy ‘empty calorie’ needs, such as convincing us how great and wonderful we are, rather than challenging us and helping us to grow.”

The Human Factor

Paradoxically, artificial intelligence may help us better define what it means to be human. For all its supposed verisimilitude, AI frequently stumbles in its attempts to imitate us.

Its glitches and gaffes spotlight our distinctiveness. “AI slop” has already emerged as a catchall term for AI-generated content that fails to ascend to a human standard of artistry and wit. When Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently pitched AI chatbots as friends, novelist Walter Kirn quipped in response: “But can they help you move a couch?”

Research by Jonathan Gratch, research professor of psychology, found that interactions with AI chatbots didn’t improve a participant’s overall sense of connectedness, although they did make people less motivated to engage with their friends.

“I suspect that AI will satisfy ‘empty calorie’ needs, such as convincing us how great and wonderful we are, rather than challenging us and helping us to grow,” says Gratch, also a research professor of computer science at USC Viterbi School of Engineering. In that sense, AI spotlights the irreplaceable value of humanity.

For all its purported intelligence, AI does not have its own morality, culture or religion. All of what it offers was taken from humans, from thousands of years of collective creativity and scholarship. “AI gathers its sources from us. It is not better than us in this sense, it is us — with all our prejudices, errors and biases,” says Thompson.

It also cannot grieve or demonstrate compassion, something both humans and animals do. Ultimately, we may find that humanity has far more in common with mice — which USC researchers recently discovered give their littermates CPR — than with the AI writing tomes about the mysteries of the stars.

Perhaps the Turing Test should be updated to consider whether one can cry, without instructions to do so. It’s an idea already advanced by Philip K. Dick, whose robot detection test in the book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? relied on emotional responses to sniff out machines from humans. Set in the year 2021, it wasn’t too far ahead of the challenges we’re facing in 2025.