> I meant the human species as a collective has no single consciousness.
Neither has an AI species, but that's not the issue. The point being made here was that a danger could arise from a very efficient and powerful automaton that has neither self awareness nor recognizes other beings with minds as relevant. From that I argued the threat of it happening is actually low because by its nature this kind of AI would probably lack the means to instigate an autonomous takeover of our planet.
> And also that individual humans do not have metaphysical consciousness.
Ah, I finally see where our misunderstanding comes from. Science doesn't talk about consciousness (or metaphysics) in the spiritual sense. The question whether people have metaphysical consciousness or not really depends on your definition of those terms, so arguing "for" or "against" isn't really gonna do anything besides getting you karma for oneliners.
As far as practical AI research is concerned, the definition of consciousness is the same for humans and non-humans and while there are different degrees of consciousness possible, there certainly is an agreement that the average human has one.
