First, there is strong scientific support for attributions of conscious experience to other mammals and to birds.
I’m interested in the scientific arguments because, as far as I know, we don’t have a good model of consciousness, and many models involve higher-level structures that we don’t see in animals with very small brains. I know that some models of consciousness seem to imply that many small animals (or even LLMs!) with “integrated information” are conscious, but it’s unclear enough not to pretend that there’s a consensus on whether a hummingbird with 100 million neurons is able to instantiate subjective experience! I agree that when in doubt we must take steps to minimise any risk of causing suffering, but this should not lead us to assume an epistemologically questionable perspective. So maybe I’m wrong, and since I’m not a specialist in consciousness, I’m interested in why experts endorse such a statement.
I’m interested in the scientific arguments because, as far as I know, we don’t have a good model of consciousness, and many models involve higher-level structures that we don’t see in animals with very small brains. I know that some models of consciousness seem to imply that many small animals (or even LLMs!) with “integrated information” are conscious, but it’s unclear enough not to pretend that there’s a consensus on whether a hummingbird with 100 million neurons is able to instantiate subjective experience! I agree that when in doubt we must take steps to minimise any risk of causing suffering, but this should not lead us to assume an epistemologically questionable perspective. So maybe I’m wrong, and since I’m not a specialist in consciousness, I’m interested in why experts endorse such a statement.