Before Consciousness: Persistence, Identity, and Human Agency in Artificial Agents

Khazaei, Zahra

doi:10.22091/jptr.2026.17906.3735

Before Consciousness: Persistence, Identity, and Human Agency in Artificial Agents

Document Type : Editorial

Author

zahra khazaei

professor of Islamic philosophy and Theology, University of Qom

10.22091/jptr.2026.17906.3735

Abstract

Abstract
A significant part of contemporary philosophical debate on artificial intelligence focuses on whether artificial systems can become conscious or self-conscious and what moral status they might have. This Editorial argues that before we can reach a final conclusion about whether an artificial system is conscious, autonomous, responsible, or an agent at all, two prior questions must be addressed: what makes it the particular entity that it is, and whether its identity persists through the relevant changes it undergoes. Drawing on debates about personal identity, particularly Derek Parfit’s account, and recent discussions of artificial individuation, moral agency without consciousness, and responsibility, it argues that artificial agents raise a serious problem of identity and persistence even without settling questions of consciousness. Cases such as agent updating, memory transfer and replication, the retirement of Claude Opus 3, and a real-world case of an AI agent’s unanticipated action in a sports-club booking system make this problem concrete. The Editorial proposes three exploratory dimensions for examining artificial-agent identity: agentic memory, relations with the environment and user, and decision-making structure, while showing that none is sufficient on it

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