Consciousness Science Fails AI Governance

Contemporary consciousness scholarship has become dominated by narrative, personality, and phenomenological framing rather than delivering operational, testable criteria for attributing consciousness. That gap matters now because policymakers, courts, and the public are being asked to make rights and regulatory decisions about AI while science lacks clear, communicable standards. — If scientists don’t produce usable criteria for when a system counts as conscious, legal systems and social policy will be forced to make ad‑hoc or politicized decisions about AI personhood with high social costs.