A researcher affiliated with Google DeepMind, Alexander Lerchner, has published a paper titled 'The Abstraction Fallacy: Why AI Can Simulate But Not Instantiate Consciousness,' arguing that artificial intelligence is structurally incapable of becoming conscious regardless of scale. The paper claims symbolic computation 'requires an active, experiencing cognitive agent to alphabetize continuous physics into a finite set of meaningful states,' and that algorithmic symbol manipulation cannot instantiate experience, calling the confusion between simulation and instantiation 'the Abstraction Fallacy.' The paper includes a disclaimer stating that Lerchner's conclusions do not represent the position of his employer, and Google DeepMind has not issued a corporate statement adopting his views. A widely shared post on X, including one from account How To Prompt, misleadingly framed the paper as proof that 'Google' had ruled out AI consciousness. The paper was added to the PhilPapers database in March 2026 and has become one of the platform's most downloaded works, with tens of thousands of downloads recorded within months of publication. At least five separate response papers have since appeared on academic archives, either building on or challenging Lerchner's framework.