Animal Criteria for Machine‑Mind Claims

Use experimentally operationalized measures from animal cognition (e.g., learning mechanisms, lasting fear memory, counterfactual play) as a checklist before asserting machine consciousness. Instead of anthropomorphic inference from behaviour, require cross‑species convergent signatures (mechanistic continuity, counterfactual imagination, durable affective states) to justify claims about nonliving minds. — This reframes AI‑personhood and regulation debates around concrete empirical tests rather than rhetorical or purely philosophical claims, changing how policymakers, journalists, and courts evaluate claims that systems are 'conscious.'