Are Babies Conscious?

Commenters debated whether newborns are conscious and what counts as evidence. Marojejian said the piece increased their credence that newborns are sentient. Popalchemist argued baby consciousness is obvious from everyday experience and called the headline irresponsible, linking consciousness to moral status and noting past medical errors - Apothegm pointed out infants were once operated on without anesthesia because surgeons assumed they weren’t conscious. Feverzsj and Ekaros questioned whether the brain alone produces consciousness and raised anatomical and philosophical puzzles, while a few lighter remarks focused on the visual oddity of infants wearing headgear.

Several contributors used the baby question to revisit AI consciousness. ViktorRay compared public confusion about babies, pets and language-capable systems, calling large language models “deep fakes” that simulate personhood without real consciousness. Skkeofneicjejr noted many on the site still argue LLMs are conscious, while Dazhengca countered that denying LLM consciousness is premature because the mechanism that produces consciousness is unknown. Opinion thus split between those insisting infant consciousness is evident and morally decisive and those treating it as a scientific puzzle tied to debates about brain sources and AI analogies.