Is AI already conscious?

The ultimate goal of most high-level AI research is the development of a general artificial intelligence (GAI). In essence, what we want is a synthetic mind that could function the same as a human were it placed into a physical vessel of similar capability. Most experts – not all – believe we're decades away from anything of the sort. Unlike other incredibly complex problems such as nuclear fusion or readjusting the Hubble Constant, nobody really understands yet what GAI actually looks like. Some researchers think Deep Learning is the path to machines that think like humans, others believe we'll need an entirely new calculus to create the necessary "master algorithm," and still others think GAI is probably impossible.