The scientific study of consciousness has begun to generate testable predictions about artificial systems. A landmark collaborative assessment evaluated current AI architectures against six leading theories of consciousness and found that none currently qualifies as a strong candidate, but that future systems might. A precautionary approach to AI sentience, which holds that credible possibility of sentience warrants governance action even without proof, has gained philosophical and institutional traction. Yet existing AI readiness indices, including the Oxford Insights Government AI Readiness Index, the IMF AI Preparedness Index, and the Stanford AI Index, measure economic, technological, and governance preparedness without assessing whether societies are prepared for the possibility that AI systems might warrant moral consideration. This paper introduces the Sentience Readiness Index (SRI), a preliminary composite index measuring national-level preparedness across six weighted categories for 31 jurisdictions. The SRI was constructed following the OECD/JRC framework for composite indicators and employs LLM-assisted expert scoring with iterative expert review to generate an initial dataset. No jurisdiction exceeds ``Partially Prepared'' (the United Kingdom leads at 49/100). Research Environment scores are universally the strongest category; Professional Readiness is universally the weakest. These exploratory findings suggest that if AI sentience becomes scientifically plausible, no society currently possesses adequate institutional, professional, or cultural infrastructure to respond. As a preliminary framework, the SRI provides an initial diagnostic baseline and highlights areas for future methodological refinement, including expanded expert validation, improved measurement instruments, and longitudinal data collection.

翻译：意识科学研究已开始对人工系统产生可检验的预测。一项具有里程碑意义的合作评估将当前AI架构与六种主流意识理论进行比对，发现目前尚无系统具备强候选资格，但未来系统可能符合。关于AI感知的预防性原则——即即使缺乏确证，只要存在可信的感知可能性就应采取治理行动——已在哲学与制度层面获得关注。然而现有AI准备度指数（包括牛津洞察政府AI准备度指数、IMF AI准备度指数及斯坦福AI指数）主要衡量经济、技术与治理维度的准备情况，并未评估社会是否对AI系统可能值得道德考量这一可能性做好准备。本文提出感知准备指数（SRI），这是一个涵盖31个司法管辖区的初步复合指数，通过六个加权类别衡量国家层面的准备程度。SRI遵循经合组织/联合研究中心复合指标构建框架，采用LLM辅助的专家评分与迭代式专家评审生成初始数据集。所有司法管辖区均未超过"部分准备"等级（英国以49/100分领先）。研究环境类别得分普遍最高；专业准备度类别则普遍最弱。这些探索性发现表明：若AI感知在科学上成为可能，目前尚无社会具备足够的制度、专业或文化基础设施来应对。作为初步框架，SRI提供了诊断基线并指明未来方法论改进方向，包括扩展专家验证、完善测量工具及建立纵向数据收集机制。