Can Machines Think About Thinking? Reframing Metacognition in the Age of Generative AI
Journal of Artificial Intelligence and Consciousness April 3, 2026 Simone Conversano
In this paper, I investigate whether metacognition — the ability to monitor, evaluate, and regulate one’s own cognitive processes and performance — can arise in non-biological systems, especially Large Language Models (LLMs). Drawing on cognitive science and philosophy of mind, I contrast embodied and enactivist accounts, which tie metacognition to biological consciousness and embodied...