Neuroscientist: consciousness, perception, & dreamachines. TED speaker, & author: Being You - A New Science of Consciousness.
Brighton, UK
Joined October 2010
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๐ Good news! ๐ The kind people at @BBSJournal have made the new collection on "Conscious AI and biological naturalism" completely #OpenAccess for a limited period. This include the target article, all 50 commentaries (many of which disagree with me), and my response. Go to the link and click 'save pdf': DOI.org/10.1017/S0140525X250โฆ
For easier ways into the debate, try my @NoemaMag essay on "The Mythology of Conscious AI" (winner of the 2025 @berggruenInst Essay Prize), and this 2026 main-stage @TEDTalks:
noemamag.com/the-mythology-oโฆ
ted.com/talks/anil_seth_why_โฆ
Balanced and well-written article on 'AI consciousness and model welfare' in @IEEESpectrum by Eliza Strickland @newsbeagle, with input from me, @camhberg, @mustafasuleyman, & @mmitchell_ai.
One small amend - I *do* think that research on functional emotional vectors (&c) can tell us many useful things helpful for interpretability, prediction of model behaviour, and control. I just think that this research doesn't have much to say about 'AI consciousness' because the presence of emotional vectors (&c) seems very much to be expected given the architecture/training data/learning paradigm. In other words there are readily available deflationary explanations for these interesting (and useful) observations which don't involve consciousness at all, and are more parsimonious and plausible because of this.
Anyway, quibble aside, here's the link: spectrum.ieee.org/ai-model-wโฆ
Anil Seth retweeted
Super excited about our Conscious screening at Fondazione Prada in Milan tomorrow! ๐ฅณ
Part of Human Brains: Screen Talk - a series by @FondazionePrada exploring the human brain through science and cinema.
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Anil Seth retweeted
ืื ืืืื ืืืฉ ืืฉืื ืื: ืื ืื ื ืขืฉืื ื ืืื ืืื ืืืืื ืืช ืืืืคื ืืื. ืืื. ืขืืฉืื ืื ืขืืืื - ืืืืื ืืื ืื ืชืฉืืืื ืืช ืืืืฉื ืืืืกืืืจื ืืื ืืคื. ืื ืืืืืื ืืช ืืืืจืื ื ืืชืงื ืืช ืืืืื ื, ืืืื ืืฉืืืขืช ืืชืืงืื. ืื ืชืืืืื!! ืื ืืืืืื ืฉืืื @naftalibennett @gadi_eisenkot @YairGolan1 @AvigdorLiberman
Anil Seth retweeted
Loved every minute of the 8th Global Science Film Festival! ๐ A heartfelt thank you to such a wonderful, receptive audience - it was so moving to feel how the stories resonated with you. The post-screening Q&A was really stimulating and gave me so much to reflect on.
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Anil Seth retweeted
The big problem you'll face is that consciousness science is dominated by people saying "I've solved it", and everyone else sighing "no you haven't".
So avoid going down the rabbit hole of one theory before you've sampled the rest, like becoming a die-hard Haydn devotee before you've heard Mozart or Beethoven, let alone Monteverdi or Tchaikovsky. I'd recommend a tasting menu instead:
Stan Dehaene, Consciousness and the BrainโจSteve Fleming, Know ThyselfโจAnil Seth, Being YouโจAndy Clark, The Experience MachineโจPeter Godfrey-Smith, Other MindsโจDavid Chalmers, The Conscious Mind
If you'd rather read articles than books, try a recent target article in Behavioral and Brain Sciences. They come with dozens of short peer-reviewed replies from other top researchers (mostly people politely saying "this is wrong" in different ways), which gives you a real sense of how contested even basic claims in the field are.
For a recent high profile article with some great discussion , I'd go for @anilkseth's "Conscious artificial intelligence and biological naturalism", which has 50 commentaries (including one from me!), plus Anil's response.
cambridge.org/core/journals/โฆ
Bad idea ๐nautil.us/creating-fake-peopโฆ
We believe voice is the most natural way to interact with intelligence, so we created Dessa, the most authentic full-duplex speech model ever built. Talking with it feels like talking with a personโฆfull of emotion, nuance, pauses, and a natural cadence.
block.xyz/dessa
๐จ Today (Fri 23rd) is the last chance to download the full 109 page pdf of the @BBSJournal collection on 'conscious AI and biological naturalism, including target article, 50 peer commentaries, and my author response. Full access will be restricted to subscribers from tomorrow. Don't miss out (& click 'save pdf')! doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X250โฆ
๐๐ฝ๐๐ฝ๐๐ฝ๐๐ฝ
Double @BIFA_film long-lists for CONSCIOUS!
A huge thank you to our collaborators and funders, we did this together!
@aconitedocs @screenscots @sundanceorg @BFI @TheDocSociety
Contributors
@WendyPMitchell
Pegeen O'Sullivan
@MaureenWinfiel1
@profanilseth
Anil Seth retweeted
โThe brain is not a Turing machine made of meat. We experience the world around us and ourselves within it โ with, through and because of our living bodies.โ @anilkseth
noemamag.com/the-mythology-oโฆ
Anil Seth retweeted
Why consciousness is more likely a property of life than of computation and why creating conscious, or even conscious-seeming AI, is a bad idea | @anilkseth in @NoemaMag noemamag.com/the-mythology-oโฆ noemamag.com/the-mythology-oโฆ
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More relevant now than ever... where philosophy meets neuroscience!
What Creates Consciousness? | World Science Festival youtu.be/06-iq-0yJNM?si=x-fHโฆ via @YouTube
Is it a duck, or is it a rabbit? (How) do multimodal large language models (MLLMs) report bistable images? Terrific new work led by @SussexCentre PhD student @rtakatsky - to be presented at #EMNLP2026. Paper and explainer video below ๐๐ฝ
Visual cues or expectations can flip what we see in bistable imagesโyet we typically see only one interpretation at a time. ๐ฆ๐
Do MLLMs show human-like reports? If so, how?
Excited to share our #EMNLP2026 Main paper: โ(How) Do MLLMs Report Bistable Images Like Humans?โ (1/3)
Anil Seth retweeted
Got my copy, and I recommend it. Thx @anilkseth @BBSJournal
Intelligence should never be assumed to lie on a consciousness scale. We have had basic AI for years now; they are called smartphones, search engines, and scanners!
Those advocating that consciousness can arise after a threshold of intelligence has been met may encounter the thorny issue of emergence itself!
From my point of view, the section on substrate independence, flexibility, and neural replacement is the most pertinent as it is readily overlooked in today's malaise!
Thanks again - and this @BBSJournal is open access but only until Friday 23rd! So don't miss out - click 'save pdf' to download the whole thing ๐๐ฝ
Best read in conjunction with Seth's article in Behavioral and Brain Sciences, the dozens of commentaries published with it, and the author's reply: cambridge.org/core/journals/โฆ
Thanks @sapinker - much appreciated ๐๐ฝ๐๐ฝ
Lucid article by Seth, Block, & Tononi: Three reasons why AI is not conscious and perhaps never will be nature.com/articles/d41586-0โฆ
Anil Seth retweeted
โFollowing this path would draw attention and resources away from beings whose consciousness is not in any doubt.โ nature.com/articles/d41586-0โฆ
Anil Seth retweeted
Almost nobody worries that AlphaFold "might be conscious. Thatโs because AlphaFold predicts protein structures, whereas LLMs โtalkโ to us. The compelling illusion of consciousness created by linguistic fluency just isnโt there for AlphaFold" @anilseth & al
nature.com/articles/d41586-0โฆ
Anil Seth retweeted
Jeff, the problem I have with this is the opportunity cost: focusing upon some highly unlikely possibility is a distraction to the clear and present realities.
The laws of physics are such that it is possible that every oxygen atom in the room I am currently in could migrate to a corner, thereby suffocating me.
The probability of this happening is astonishingly low.
Where I to waste my time on that highly unlikely event, I might not realize that the room was on fire.
Alternately, why not spend that energy on the rights of other organic species that are clearly more conscious than any software intensive system will be anytime soon?