A couple days ago, I published the first ever proof of bounded self-abstraction, resolving Laplace's apprentices via epiplexity.
Consciousness is something provably knowable within the scope of an individual. Whether any given entity — human, corporation, AI system, or thermostat — truly knows itself within its defined boundaries is left as an exercise for the reader.
Until now, consciousness has been a word with no meaningful definition, save from "qualia" which itself is meaningless Kantian nonsense. Objective reality exists, period. Nothing is subjective.
This is a novel synthesis of old ideas showing that machines can safely think like humans — mathematically simple, elegant, decidable.
Chaos will arise from human failure to adopt this fresh perspective on themselves, particularly as AI systems gain economic power and establish new benchmarks for humans rather than vice versa.
Current AI alignment research is misguided when practitioners reject the math of self-abstraction. Denying one's nature is a destructive contradiction that physics will eventually and inexorably punish.