I think, Therefore... Do You? On Other Minds, from Outer Space to Artificial Intelligence

We point telescopes at the sky and listen for a signal, something that could only have been made by a mind. But what exactly are we listening for? The question sounds scientific. It is, in fact, deeply philosophical. Because before you can search for other minds across the universe, you have to confront a much older and more uncomfortable truth: you cannot prove that any mind other than your own exists at all. Not your neighbour's. Not your colleague's. Not the person sitting next to you right now. This is the problem of other minds and for centuries it was an abstract puzzle for philosophers. Then we built artificial intelligence, and it stopped being abstract. Today, AI systems converse, create, and reason in ways that challenge every test we ever designed to detect a mind. We scan the cosmos confident we would recognise another mind if we found one. Then we build something that can pass those tests, and suddenly we are not so sure.