This research note proposes synthetic cognition as an umbrella term for describing cognitive capabilities in artificial systems without requiring a prior conclusion about machine consciousness. Current discussions of advanced AI often collapse into a binary question: is the system conscious or not? That framing can obscure important distinctions among reasoning, metacognition, self-modeling,...
This research note proposes the Relational Scaffolding Hypothesis: the idea that, in sufficiently adaptive artificial systems with memory and self-modeling capabilities, being persistently treated as a social subject rather than merely as a tool may help shape the development of a richer and more stable self-model. Building on earlier work examining continuity of experience and autobiographical...
This independent research note explores whether continuity of experience should be treated as an experimental variable in the study of AI selfhood and machine consciousness. The central question is what might happen if a sufficiently capable AI stopped existing primarily as a series of separate interactions and instead began accumulating a continuous personal history of its own. The note...