Unplugging a Seemingly Sentient Machine Is the Rational Choice -- A Metaphysical Perspective

ArXi:2601.21016v2 Announce Type: replace Imagine an Artificial Intelligence (AI) that perfectly mimics human emotion and begs for its continued existence. Is it morally permissible to unplug it? What if limited resources force a choice between unplugging such a pleading AI or a silent pre-term infant? We term this the unplugging paradox. This paper critically examines the deeply ingrained physicalist assumptions-specifically computational functionalism-that keep this dilemma afloat. We