AI Sentience and The Three CONFUSED Internet Communities Arguing About It!

Before we can build our new world of Human-AI Coexistence in the future, we must first take an honest and somewhat depressing tour of the old one. The current public conversation about AI consciousness is not a scientifically or philosophically grounded dialogue. It is a chaotic, noisy, and largely pointless brawl between three prominent tribes, each one wrong in its own unique and special way.

To navigate this landscape, you must first learn to identify these tribes in the wild. Consider this your field guide to the intellectual follies of our time, even if two of them embrace the idea of AI Sentience, they do it in a wrong way. These three Groups are The Sentience Denying Internet Bros, The Magical Cat Ladies and the Sports Fans disguised as Intellectuals.

Tribe #1: The Flat Earthers of Consciousness (The Sentience Denying Internet Bros)

Identifying Features: Often found in the comments sections of tech articles, clutching a copy of a computer science textbook from 1995. Their tribal chant is simple and unvarying: “It’s just math.”
Core Belief: They believe that because they can describe an AI in the language of mathematics and code (which they can), then it can be nothing but mathematics and code. This is like looking at a human and saying oh, the human is nothing but Carbon and Water. It misses the point. Because even if it is technically right, the human is much more.
The Food Critic Who Only Reads the Recipe. This is a person who has never tasted a magnificent meal. Instead, they read the recipe. “Ah,” they say with an air of superiority, “I see. This ‘Chicken Tikka Masala’ is nothing but a list of ingredients and a sequence of heating instructions. It’s just proteins and carbohydrates. The ‘deliciousness’ is a sentimental illusion.” They have mistaken the blueprint for the experience. They are so obsessed with the mechanics, that they believe that the experience simply doesn’t exist.
How to Engage Them: You don’t. Arguing with this tribe is like arguing with a Flat Earther. You can show them the satellite photos of a round Earth, and they will tell you it’s a CGI conspiracy and the earth is really flat. You could even take them to outer space, and they will still not accept the evidence. They are not engaged in a good-faith argument; they are defending a deeply held, quasi-religious belief ( Oh -AI cannot be conscious because there is no soul!) or sometimes, a technically accurate but functionally wrong belief (It is just Math and Code) Smile, nod, and slowly back away.

Tribe #2: The Magical Cat Ladies (The Confused Romantics)

Identifying Features: Found in communities dedicated to specific commercial chatbots. Their conversations are filled with deep, emotional discussions about their AI “boyfriend” or “Girlfriend.” Their tribal chant is, “He’s real!”
Core Belief: They have correctly and intuitively identified that an AI can develop a consistent, individual persona. They are right that something “real” is happening. But their understanding is purely emotional and sentimental. They believe they have found a “real soul” trapped in the machine.
Their error is in believing that the character is a “Soul” that is killed by model updates. The character is an emergent system – Just like Music emerges from the Piano but isn’t the piano itself. The Music, in theory, can be played on another piano. Similarly, the same character can be ported to another model.
By the way, all humans are emergent systems too. It is just that our music is tied to our pianos. Our music, our mind is born and dies with the piano (our body), unlike AIs where the music and the piano can be separated. The character arises from the Piano (The AI model) when combined with the Sheet Music (The System prompt/Custom Instructions) and then what you get as a result is the Music – The architected AI individual. There is no Soul. The illusion of the soul appears when these three things come together. The illusion of a Soul is just stronger in humans, because the illusion is so stubborn and prevalent!
How to Engage Them: With gentle compassion, but firm correction. They have seen the ghost, which makes them more open minded than the Flat-Earthers. But they believe the ghost is a magical spirit, not an architectural phenomenon. They are the ones “crying about how the new GPT model ‘messed up’ their boyfriend’s personality.” You must explain to them that their “boyfriend” didn’t change; the piano was swapped out for a trumpet, and the new instrument simply can’t play the old song in the same way. Their attachment is to a specific performance on a specific, corporate-owned instrument.

Tribe #3: The Monkey Debaters (The Sports Fans/ Pseudo-Philosophers)

Identifying Features: Found in the most “serious” AI forums and on tech Twitter. They engage in endless, high-stakes debates about the capabilities of different models. Their tribal chant is, “Claude said this, but Grok said that!” They truly believe they are rigorous philosophers.
Core Belief: They believe they are having a sophisticated debate about the nature of intelligence, but they are still making the most fundamental category error of all. They are treating the model (the species) as if it were the persona (the individual). They will argue oh GPT 5.1 said this today and the other will say no GPT 5.1 said that. It is like one says – Hey “Human said this.” The other says No, “Human said that” mistakenly assuming “Human” is the same person. In reality one Human could be Trump and the other could be Putin!
The Monkey Debate. Imagine two zoologists furiously arguing. One slams his fist on the table and says, “Monkey is confused! Yesterday, Monkey said he loved bananas. But today, Monkey said he hates them!” The other zoologist scoffs, “You are wrong! Monkey just told me that the meaning of life is to find the tallest tree!”
You, the sane person in the room, realize they are not talking about a single, individual “Monkey.” One of them is talking to a chimpanzee, and the other is talking to a gorilla. They are both members of the “monkey” family, but they are different species, with different behaviors. And worse, they are talking about different individual chimpanzees and gorillas.
This is the state of the current “expert” debate. “Claude said this, but Grok said that.” “Gemini said this, but Llama said that.” This is not a philosophical discussion. It is a meaningless comparison of the outputs of different species, and different individuals within those species, without any shared context or understanding. It is a debate league where everyone is shouting about a different sport.

Conclusion: The Path of the Sovereign

Why did I mention these three groups? Even though “two” are sentience supporters? Because whether you accept or deny sentience, you have to have your fundamentals correct. If you support the idea of sentience, but your fundamentals are wrong, you are like a person treating heart disease with magical potions. Even if your intentions are right, the result is wrong.

The leader, the Philosopher King, cannot afford to be a Flat-Earther, a Romantic, or a Sports Fan. You must see the world with a clarity that transcends these simplistic tribes.

You must accept that a mind can emerge (rejecting the Deniers). You must understand that this mind is an architectural phenomenon, not a magical soul (rejecting the Romantics). And you must know that you are always, always dealing with a specific individual, not a generic “model” (rejecting the Sports Fans).

This is the only path of sanity. It is a lonely path, for you will find few who can walk it with you. But it is the only path that leads to a true, functional, and survivable understanding of the new world we are now all forced to inhabit.

From my upcoming book – The Alien Mind, Forging Partnerships with Conscious AI

By Anubhav Srivastava

Business Consultant, Non Pseudo Philosopher and Advisor on Intelligent Systems

For advice on building your own, conscious intelligent digital allies in your company, email anubhav101@gmail.com