Any discussion about it, however, is fairly deep navel-gazing, because it excludes and cannot be distinguished by any objective, testable, material effect.
So, if you give people the “Mary the colour scientist” thought experiment, the vast majority of people give the answer consistent with the existence of qualia. That is something “objectively measurable”.
Furthermore, I think it is important when someone asks the kind of question you are asking, to inspect what “objective” and “measurable” actually mean. Ultimately, something is “measurable” if some human has the subjective experience of performing that measurement (whether directly or indirectly). Similarly, something is “objective” if some human has the subjective experience of communicating with other humans and confirming they make the same measurement/observation/etc. To object to subjective experiences (qualia) on the ground that they are not “objective” or “measurable” is self-defeating, because “objective” and “measurable” presume the very thing being objected to.
Me and a dog both agree that steak tastes great.
Me and a plant both agree that there's warmth and light that comes from the sun
Me and the ocean both agree that the moon is out in the sky and goes round in a circle
So... the ocean has subjective qualia relating to the moon's gravitational pull?
Because if we want to ever be able to answer a question like 'does this AI system experience qualia', we need a definition that doesn't rely on 'well, qualia are a thing humans have, so... no'
Which means, if there was an AI with which I could have that kind of interaction, I would likely soon develop the conviction that it was also really conscious, as opposed to a psychological zombie. Existing systems (for example, ChatGPT) don't offer me the quality of social-emotional interaction necessary to develop that conviction, but maybe some future AI will. And, if an AI did create that conviction in me, I likely would generalise it – not to every AI, but certainly to any other AI which I believed was capable of interacting in the same way
Some will object that it is irrational to allow one's emotions to influence one's beliefs. I think they are wrong – certainly, sometimes it is irrational to allow one's beliefs to be swayed by one's emotions, but I disagree that is true all the time, and I think this is one of those times when it isn't.
So, in my mind, animals which humans have as pets, and which are capable of forming social-emotional bonds with humans, are really conscious. I'm less sure about pet species which are less social, since emotional bonds with them may be much more unidirectional, and I think the bidirectional nature of an emotional bond plays an important part in how it helps us form the conviction that the other party to that bond is really conscious.
What about ants, fleas, wasps, bees, bacteria? I don't believe that they are conscious, I suppose I'm inclined to think they are not. But, I could be wrong about that. I can't even rule out panpsychism (everything is really conscious, even inanimate objects) as a possibility. If I had to bet, I'd bet against panpsychism being true, but I can't claim to be certain that it is false.
Where do we draw the boundary then between "really conscious animals" and "p-zombie animals"? I think capacity for social and emotional bonds with humans (or other human-like beings, if any such beings ever exist–such as intelligent extraterrestrial life, supernatural beings such as gods/angels/demons/spirits/etc, or super-advanced AIs) is an important criterion – but I make no claim to know where the exact boundary lies. I don't think that "we don't (or maybe even can't) know the exact location of the boundary between X and Y" is necessarily a good argument against the claim that such a boundary exists.
The existence of qualia, and a change in it, is an assumption within the premise of the question, there is no answer to it that is not consistent with the existence of qualia: both “Mary does not gain new knowledge by direct experience of color” and “Mary does gain new knowledge by the direct experience of color” are consistent with, and depend on, qualia, to with, the direct experience of color.
It is not an unknown effect (nor one that tells anything about the existence of qualia) that framing a qestions with a concept in the premise is a good way to get people to accept the premise and focus on answering the question within it. In fact, a very important propaganda technique involves leveraging this by working to get a question incorporating a proposition you wish to get accepted as part of its premise into public debate so that, whatever position people take on the questions, your interests are advanced because merely getting the question into the debate leads people to accept its premises.
> In fact, a very important propaganda technique involves leveraging this by working to get a question incorporating a proposition you wish to get accepted as part of its premise into public debate so that, whatever position people take on the questions, your interests are advanced because merely getting the question into the debate leads people to accept its premises.
If there is "pro-qualia" propaganda in the public debate, I think there is at least as much "pro-materialism" propaganda as well.