Julian Kiverstein Could A Robot Have A Subjective Point Of View? 1 Abstract: Scepticism about the possibility of machine consciousness comes in at least two forms. Some argue that our neurobiology is spe- cial, and only something sharing our neurobiology could be a subject of experience. Others argue that a machine couldn’t be anything else but a zombie: there could never be something it is like to be a machine. I advance a dynamic sensorimotor account of consciousness which argues against both these varieties of scepticism. 1. Introduction The idea that there could be conscious robots will strike many as an obvious contradiction. We can just about make sense of an intelligent robot that can behave just like we behave. However the idea that a robot could enjoy a subjective mental life seems obviously mistaken. Surely any robot, no matter how much it resembles us functionally, must turn out to be a zombie, a mere machine entirely lacking in con- scious experience. Indeed when we imagine a zombie, aren’t we imagining a creature whose existence is much like that of a robot? We imagine something that makes all the right moves and produces all the right noises even though all is dark within: the machine has no inner mental life. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 14, No. 7, 2007, pp. 128–40 Correspondence: j.d.kiverstein@sms.ed.ac.uk [1] Work on this paper was funded by the EUROCORES collaborative research project, CONTACT – Consciousness in Interaction. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the AISB symposium on Machine Consciousness hosted by Bristol University and at a graduate conference on the Philosophy of Perception at Durham University. My thanks to members of both audiences for helpful questions. During the writing of this paper I have learned much from conversations with Denis Walsh, Susan Hurley, Andy Clark, Till Vierkant, Bryony Pierce, Dave Ward, Tom Roberts and the editors of this volume.