Preprints.org
September 3, 2026
Izak Tait, Ziqi Wang, Joshua Bensemann
preprint
This paper explores the classification of artificial consciousness through the lens of the Building Blocks Theory, an attributional functionalist framework. Previous research indicates that while current transformer-based Large Language Models (LLMs) satisfy seven of the nine functional prerequisites for phenomenal consciousness, they fundamentally lack recurrent computing and processing, as...
Frontiers in artificial intelligence
2026
Izak Tait
If an AI entity is conscious, it deserves moral status and to have its welfare protected. Just as society has granted certain animals moral status with legislation to protect their welfare because they have been deemed to be sentient, this paper shows that for any AI that can be confidently determined to be conscious, that AI deserves the same status and protection as sentient entities. This...
Philosophies
June 22, 2023
Izak Tait, Joshua Bensemann, Trung Nguyen
For consciousness to exist, an entity must have prerequisite characteristics and attributes to give rise to it. We explore these “building blocks” of consciousness in detail in this paper, which range from perceptive to computational to meta-representational characteristics of an entity’s cognitive architecture. We show how each cognitive attribute is strictly necessary for the emergence of...
Journal of Artificial Intelligence and Consciousness
December 1, 2022
Izak Tait, Ziqi Wang, Tahua O’Leary et al.
The established theories and frameworks on consciousness in the academic literature as related to artificial intelligence (AI), are rooted in anthropocentricism. Even those theories created intentionally for AI are based on the levels of consciousness as it is understood in humans primarily, and in other animals secondarily. This paper will discuss why such anthropocentric frameworks are built...
Izak Tait, Benjamin Rode, Joshua Bensemann
preprint
This paper operationalises Global Workspace Theory (GWT) into six testable markers (global availability, functional concurrency, coordinated selection, capacity limitation, persistence with controlled update, and goal-modulated arbitration) and applies them to contemporary large language model systems. We distinguish GWT-as-functional-architecture from GWT-as-consciousness-marker, adopting...