I'd say, we can't make a direct comparison, since there's no agency (and no committed responsibility behind this). On the other hand, we probably don't want this kind of agency (like a sentient AI), since this would evoke strong doubt's in its usefulness as a machine (as in a reliable, reproducible, and predictable output in given and known tolerances as a reaction to an input signal), as this would be now subject to a varying, maybe even escalating agenda and any kind of pathologies, which would give way to any kind of uncontrollable errors.
The way it work is not different from human. The AI learn the concepts, the abstraction and then can replicate following those patterns.
For now the public facing AI don’t have agency/consciousness, but it’s coming fast anyway. Many projects are building it in the open while probably hundred more behind closed doors.
The problem we will face soon is does an artificial consciousness have right. Can we shut it down without remorse if it’s similar to our own?
It's becoming clear that with all the brain and consciousness theories out there, the proof will be in the pudding. By this I mean, can any particular theory be used to create a human adult level conscious machine. My bet is on the late Gerald Edelman's Extended Theory of Neuronal Group Selection. The lead group in robotics based on this theory is the Neurorobotics Lab at UC at Irvine. Dr. Edelman distinguished between primary consciousness, which came first in evolution, and that humans share with other conscious animals, and higher order consciousness, which came to only humans with the acquisition of language. A machine with primary consciousness will probably have to come first.
What I find special about the TNGS is the Darwin series of automata created at the Neurosciences Institute by Dr. Edelman and his colleagues in the 1990's and 2000's. These machines perform in the real world, not in a restricted simulated world, and display convincing physical behavior indicative of higher psychological functions necessary for consciousness, such as perceptual categorization, memory, and learning. They are based on realistic models of the parts of the biological brain that the theory claims subserve these functions. The extended TNGS allows for the emergence of consciousness based only on further evolutionary development of the brain areas responsible for these functions, in a parsimonious way. No other research I've encountered is anywhere near as convincing.
I post because on almost every video and article about the brain and consciousness that I encounter, the attitude seems to be that we still know next to nothing about how the brain and consciousness work; that there's lots of data but no unifying theory. I believe the extended TNGS is that theory. My motivation is to keep that theory in front of the public. And obviously, I consider it the route to a truly conscious machine, primary and higher-order.
My advice to people who want to create a conscious machine is to seriously ground themselves in the extended TNGS and the Darwin automata first, and proceed from there, by applying to Jeff Krichmar's lab at UC Irvine, possibly. Dr. Edelman's roadmap to a conscious machine is at https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.10461
I don't know how anyone can believe that.
Maybe there will be some future AI where this is true, but it's absolutely not true yet.
My argument is that humans absolutely should NOT invent AI that is on our own level.
We shouldn't overstep building tools for us to use into trying to invent new artificial life.
It's just a bad idea.