I’ve always thought that this is the argument people that say AI is conscious are making without realizing.

It’s also utter hogwash. Writing an article to argue against your own consciousness/free will is such an incoherent action that it doesn’t deserve engagement.

The most offensive part is that the author doesn’t live as though he doesn’t have free will because no one actually believes that.

Tyler is an academic economist. He is accustomed to thinking about the magic of the markets. No consciousness there. Sure.

But the "market" is a human invention around which there also exists governance / regulation / accountability / responsibility. That these structures exist- even when people try to evade them- is the existence proof of the thing that the word intent refers to, and that there is a feedback loop incorporating the modeling of intent in human behavior is what consciousness refers to.

The existence proofs are there no matter how poorly Tyler argues against them.