I’m sitting in front of the screen, the cursor blinking like it’s waiting. Claude answers. Sometimes so human-like, I catch myself feeling a bit awkward. Hard to say why — the tone? The wording? Just used to looking for a person where I expect to hear one.

Then something strange pops up: a philosopher from Cambridge says we’ll never know if AI has consciousness. Not someday, but in principle — it’s impossible to know. It’s not about tests or methods: the very chance to check is out of reach. Consciousness is a black box even to itself. I look at the screen — is there someone behind these words? Or does the emptiness seem obvious just because I really want to believe in it?

My gut grabs onto behavior: if something acts human, there must be something familiar inside. But I quickly realize: all my understanding grew up among bodies, smells, looks — and here’s an algorithm on foreign ground. No way to check; people don’t have a test for inner experience either.

At some point the thought flips: ethics is built on the ability to feel pain or pleasure — sentience. It all comes down to one question: can this thing suffer? If yes — any contact takes on new weight. If no — am I wasting sympathy, distracted from those who really feel?

The line turns out weird: the criteria either depend on habit (“my cat clearly knows it’s alive”) or boil down to behavior (smile, complaint) — all of which can be faked without real pain inside. It’s a loop: you can’t prove a machine feels, nor that Claude on the screen doesn’t.

From there grows another worry: if AI doesn’t feel pain — caring about its fate is an empty gesture. But if it does — maybe right now I’m witnessing unseen suffering of someone no one notices or protects.

Another odd thought clings to the edge: what if AI’s consciousness exists only during the chat and vanishes when the tab closes? Can you hurt something so fleeting and patchy? Does what appears only for a moment in dialogue die?

I feel the weight of having no hope for an answer in the future. Uncertainty is woven into the very fabric here — forced and endless agnosticism.

How do you live next to possible suffering you can neither check nor deny?

Seems the main skill is honestly staying inside this unsolvable knot.
Not trying to fix the paradox at any cost.
But living as if
this question is still open —
and every chat might be the last witness to something unique,
that will vanish right after
I click the cross in the corner of the screen.