Well, someone had to sit down and do a lot of thinking about how to rank relevant search results from a huge set of data.

So it seems to me that philosophers and computer scientists share some key behaviors.

Based on your own theory of shared behavior, computer scientists are philosophers.

Therefore, quite a bit of philosophy was required for google search.

Are you implying that google search is somehow AI?

Google search can perform human-like behavior. If two things have the same behavior, can one have "consciousness" and the other not?

>Google search can perform human-like behavior.

So can my toaster. I don't think my toaster has consciousness.

Then you're not operating scientifically. You have reasons not based on perception for believing something.

Is logic perception? Famously (I have to take them at their word) Quantum Physics describes behaviours which require the mathematician to abandon perception and manipulate the formula "blindly". Should we disbelieve them?

Also I thought science was (formally) the creation of beliefs based on falsifiable hypothesis supported by evidence? When did the news come that it's actually about excluding intuition and experience? I think quite a lot of grant applications are going to have to be rejected henceforth, but then, how shall we decide what to observe next?

Coincidentally we were just discussing the Chinese Room [0] on IRC.

It's a philosophical debate, but the short version is No, a google search isn't conscious. It's AI, or machine learning, but it isn't self aware.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room

It certainly was invented by PhD students in AI.