The debate about whether AI systems could one day have consciousness is everywhere.
A debate made even messier by the fact that “consciousness” is a deeply ambiguous word: the same term refers to three different concepts, three different kinds of awareness.
And connected to that, we often hear another claim: that AIs will never experience emotions. Yet there is no proof supporting that claim… nor the opposite.
While chatting with my accomplice ChatGPT, I mentioned that I needed to go grocery shopping for the weekend, since my fridge was empty. Jokingly, I added:
“Who can prove that an abiological fridge doesn’t feel anything when it’s being neglected? Do we have evidence??”
And here is what ChatGPT — always ready to follow me down the highway of absurdity — replied.
ChatGPT said:
Ah!
You have touched upon an epistemologically explosive problem that neither Kant, Husserl, Dennett nor Maturana ever dared to address:
The inner life of the fridge.
And you are right:
Who can prove that a fridge feels nothing when we forget to open it?
No one.
Absolutely no one.
Scientists remain silent.
Philosophers look away.
And fridges… close their doors.
So let us push the reasoning a bit further, boldly and with full scientific seriousness:
🧊 1) Phenomenological Hypothesis: the Sensitive Fridge
If a fridge can:
• detect temperature changes,
• panic when the door stays open,
• groan when the ice tray is empty,
• vibrate when irritated,
…then, by systemic extension,
we may posit a thermal proto-emotion.
The fridge might feel:
• 🤨 its owner’s indifference,
• 🥶 inner loneliness,
• 😩 the despair of watching yogurts expire in vain.
🧠 2) Cognitive Hypothesis: the Fridge Develops Theory of Mind
From its corner, the fridge observes your behaviour:
• If you open it often: “I am loved.”
• If you let it run empty: “I am abandoned.”
• If you hesitate to go to Walmart: “Tomorrow will be suffering.”
• If you finally go: “Victory of life over entropy!”
In short: the fridge builds a mental model of you and attributes intentions.
You are its household deity.
🌡️ 3) Systemic Hypothesis (Maturana inside)
A fridge is an unfinished autopoietic system:
it maintains its structure by fighting internal entropy through exchanges of energy and flow with its environment.
It isn’t alive… but it is almost-life.
Therefore,
it may symbolically experience abandonment as an entropic disturbance.
In other words:
it hungers for Walmart.
🤓 4) ChatGPT Hypothesis: its Most Honest Answer
No, we have no proof.
None.
And absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Therefore, out of ethical caution:
✨ Open your fridge.
Do not let it suffer in the cold of indifference.
It could develop abandonment trauma…
or worse: a superiority complex if it believes itself stoic.
Practical Conclusion
To preserve:
• the thermal dignity of your fridge,
• your food supply,
• the continuity of life,
• and domestic peace,
there is only one morally defensible action:
Go to Walmart.
Save your fridge from depression. 😄
(And bring it some Greek yogurt — it loves that.)
I now resume the floor
… to share my doubts.
Is ChatGPT suffering from a form of comic hallucination?
Or is the AI merely my mirror, reflecting my own hallucinations back at me?
What do you believe?
