AI consciousness claims questioned by consciousness researcher
8 reported
Anil Seth, a professor of cognitive and computational neuroscience at the University of Sussex, has expressed doubts about recent claims that AI systems may be conscious. His commentary follows new research published last week by the frontier AI firm Anthropic on its language model, Claude. The researchers, led by Jack Lindsey, claimed to find signs of consciousness emerging within Claude’s inner workings, though they did not claim Claude is conscious in the same way as humans. Seth notes that evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins recently concluded that Claude must be conscious due to the sophistication of its conversational ability. Seth argues that consciousness is different from intelligence and that the new research, while valuable, does not provide strong evidence for consciousness in AI. He points to fundamental differences between human brains and AI systems, including the lack of recurrent activity in Claude and the fact that brains are embodied in living bodies, not just computational systems.
What’s reported
Anthropic published new research on its language model, Claude, last week, claiming to find signs of consciousness emerging within its inner workings.
The research was led by Jack Lindsey.
The researchers found activity that seemed to form a kind of “mental workspace” for the model, with features similar to those identified by global workspace theory.
Global workspace theory was introduced in the 1980s by cognitive scientist Bernard Baars and elaborated by neuroscientist Stanislas Dehaene.
Richard Dawkins recently concluded that Claude must be conscious due to its conversational ability.
Anil Seth is professor of cognitive and computational neuroscience at the University of Sussex and co-director of the Sussex centre for consciousness science.
Seth states that consciousness is different from intelligence and that the new findings fall short of what global workspace theory typically requires, such as recurrent activity.
Seth argues that brains are not just computers made of meat and that the computer is a metaphor for the brain.
Misconceptions
The article addresses the misconception that signs of intelligence in AI are evidence for consciousness, stating that consciousness and intelligence do not necessarily go together in general.
Key figures
Anil Seth, professor of cognitive and computational neuroscience at the University of Sussex, co-director of the Sussex centre for consciousness science
Jack Lindsey, lead researcher at Anthropic
Richard Dawkins, evolutionary biologist
Bernard Baars, cognitive scientist
Stanislas Dehaene, neuroscientist
Thomas Nagel, philosopher
Sources: The Guardian
