Philosophers endorsing Computational Functionalism (CF) have argued we should afford AI systems moral consideration in virtue of their possessing (or possibly possessing) conscious states. I argue we have no good reason to think CF is true, and good reason to think it isn’t. I distinguish three versions of Computational Functionalism and give arguments against each. Identity CF says the property of a physical system implementing the right computation is identical to the property of physical system being in a conscious state. I show that on plausible assumptions about computational implementation we have a straightforward deductive argument against Identity CF. I then consider more popular versions of CF which say that the property of a physical system implementing the right computation is either ‘sufficient for’, or ‘necessary and sufficient for’ (rather than identical to), a physical system being in a conscious state. Responding to Chalmer’s dancing and fading qualia arguments, I argue we have no good reason to think that a physical system could be conscious in virtue of implementing a computation, and the idea ought to strike us as a bizarre and implausible.
