Possibilities [Un]locked: Questioning the Paradigm of ‘Artificial Consciousness’ and the Promise of ‘Transcendence’ in Jack Paglen’s ‘Transcendence’

While today’s ever-advancing A.I continues to increase unrelentingly, the revolutionary drive to animate matter, blend the mechanical with biology, and create unprecedented exact replicas of the human brain bearing traits of individuality becomes an actively debated topic in serious academic studies as well as in science fiction. Radically changing the way we interact with machines and computers, the revolutionary prospect of ‘artificial consciousness’, whose driving aspiration is to create unprecedented exact replicas of the human brain bearing traits of individuality, has raised crucial questions: Could consciousness be embedded in AI machines? Would these machines ever become sentient, autonomous, and human-like? And could they truly interpret needs and have their own subjective experiences, distinct emotions, memories, thought processes and beliefs of humans? Inspired by the techno-optimist approach of ‘Transhumanism’ and instigated by Ray Kurzweil’s theorization of ‘Technological Singularity’, the present paper is mainly concerned with demonstrating the unintended consequences of transgressing what has been ‘designed’ by nature. More precisely speaking, investigating the prospect of ‘Artificial Consciousness’–the plausibility of embedding and fully extending consciousness onto A.I. machines– along with questioning the transhumanist framing of technology as a form of transcendence. For this purpose, an in-depth, close textual analysis is conducted on Jack Paglen’s science fiction novelization, ‘Transcendence’ (2014), to finally reach the conclusion that technology is still a long way from attaining artificial consciousness. In other words, there is something intrinsic, special, and unique about human consciousness that cannot be replicated or captured by technology.