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...
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...
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...