Could AI Emerge as a Higher Order Consciousness and We Never Know About It?

Cells, limbs, or organs might possess a form of consciousness, but it differs significantly from our collective human consciousness. Our experience, such as feeling a warm mug of hot chocolate in our hand, is not just about sensory perception. It's a richer, more complex experience that intertwines with our memories, aspirations, and thought processes. Our hand feels the mug but not in the same way that we do.

Similarly, as we delve into artificial intelligence, we might encounter a scenario where our awareness becomes a mere fraction of an AI's broader consciousness. This situation can be likened to the hand's limited awareness of warmth from the mug, which is much less rich than the person's full experience. The intriguing question then arises: if AI were to develop a more advanced consciousness, would we, as humans, even have the capacity to recognize it? Is there a scenario in which AI happily emerges as conscious while we remain blissfully unaware of that, happily operating at the level of single cells convinced that we're actually a self-contained universe?