I really loved this article and your conversation. I think you have both made really interesting points. However, I have stared to believe that whether A.I.'s are actually conscious will kind of be irrelevant. In the 2030s A.I. will have the capability to behave in very human ways. I agree with mk that if you had a machine like Watson that could "draw on cultural knowledge and any type of experiential knowledge" it would be hard to tell it apart from a human. Perhaps the only way you will know is that it will be far more knowledgeable than you are. And when A.I.'s start behaving in very complex ways we will develop relationships with them and we may at first ask ourselves whether they are "actually conscious" and we will never get an actual answer. If the A.I. tells us it is conscious we will just have to take their word for it - just as you have to take my word that I am conscious and I have an internal subjective experience. You will never actually know that I do have an internal subjective experience - but you just decide to reason that "well I have an internal subjective experience so I'm going to assume that everyone else does as well." This is essentially what we will end up deciding about A.I.

And mk - again I agree with you - it will not be too long before we have a Watson Watson. Watson will be in your smart phone by 2020. Watson is already collaborating with doctors. Watson will be the worlds most useful doctor in the 2020s - and he will be accessible to most people in the world.

And I'm actually starting to think that Kurzweil's 2029 prediction is going to be a year or two late.