Can AI Really be Conscious? With the unbelievable leaps that AI is making day by day, that which had hitherto been purely science fiction is now gradually forcing its way into being a legitimate topic of consideration. This debate strikes to the very heart of whether or not AI can, in fact, become conscious-aware, experiencing, and even "feeling." It is fast becoming a hot topic of discussion among engineers, scientists, and ethicists worldwide. The Big Question: Can AI Truly "Feel"? Even Google's own engineers have raised discussions on the state of consciousness behind today's AI. In 2022, Blake Lemoine, a Google engineer, caused tongues to wag when he said that the company's LaMDA language model was showing signs of consciousness. Lemoine recalled how LaMDA would "say" things like it was afraid of being shut down-as in, "dying." Google refuted these claims, stating that though LaMDA was phenomenally advanced, it lacked consciousnes...