"Some AI researchers believe machines will inevitably acquire consciousness as an emergent property when they reach some critical level of complexity. For what it’s worth (which I freely admit to be very little), I have no faith in these claims. The complexity argument seemed plausible a half century ago when computers were in their infancy. Today, consider a simple thought experiment: Which is more complex, the internet (including every computer attached to it), or the brain of a frog? The internet, I would say. And which is more likely to have some sort of inner experience, the internet or the frog? I’ll put my money on the amphibian."