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This paper has a critical and a constructive part. The first part formulates a political demand, based on ethical considerations: Until 2050, there should be a global moratorium on synthetic phenomenology, strictly banning all research that directly aims at or knowingly risks the emergence of artificial consciousness on post-biotic carrier systems. The second part lays the first conceptual foundations for an open-ended process with the aim of gradually refining the original moratorium, tying it to an ever more fine-grained, rational, evidence-based, and hopefully ethically convincing set of constraints. The systematic research program defined by this process could lead to an incremental reformulation of the original moratorium. It might result in a moratorium repeal even before 2050, in the continuation of a strict ban beyond the year 2050, or a gradually evolving, more substantial, and ethically refined view of which — if any — kinds of conscious experience we want to implement in AI systems.
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In this stunningly original exploration of human consciousness, philosopher and scientist Thomas Metzinger provides fascinating evidence that the "self" does not really exist. Highlighting a series of groundbreaking experiments in neuroscience, virtual reality, and robotics, and his own pioneering research into the phenomenon of the "out-of-body" experience, Metzinger reveals how our brain constructs our reality—our deepest sense of self is completely dependent on our brain functioning. In The Ego Tunnel, Metzinger examines recent evidence that people born without arms or legs can experience a sensation that they do in fact have limbs—and how we can actually feel a human touch in a rubber hand placed on a desk in front of us. Similarly, he reveals how the state of our experiential self changes when we become lucid while we're dreaming, and how our sense of self can even be transposed into a three-dimensional computer-generated image of our body in cyberspace simply by using virtual reality goggles, creating a conflict between the seeing self and the feeling self. He goes on to discuss the latest research on free will, machine consciousness, and the evolution of empathy. Highlighting these examples and more, Metzinger asserts that if our "self" is created by our brain mechanisms and it's possible to alter our subjective reality, then this creates not only a deeper understanding of consciousness, but a need for a new approach to ethics. Our sense of self, our spatial understanding, and the feeling of embodiment can be manipulated and even controlled. Using new kinds of medication, we can even enhance cognition and fine-tune emotional layers of self consciousness. But what, in an ethical sense, are valuable forms of self-experience in the first place—what is a good state of consciousness? Metzinger ultimately argues that we must be willing to engage with serious and pressing ethical questions as well as cultural consequences that will result from a new image of the "self" and the emerging neurotechnology of consciousness. In a time when the science of cognition is becoming as controversial as evolution, The Ego Tunnel provides a highly innovative take on the mystery of the mind. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)