6 papers in the library · publishing 2024-2026
October 20, 2026 Simon Goldstein, Cameron Domenico Kirk-Giannini
Abstract This chapter addresses two open questions about consciousness in AIs. First, it considers the small model and within/between objections. The small model objection worries that functionalist conditions on consciousness could not be correct because they are satisfied by implausibly small neural networks. The within/between objection worries that functionalist conditions on consciousness...
October 20, 2026 Simon Goldstein, Cameron Domenico Kirk-Giannini
Abstract The recent successes of AI models have led to a resurgence of academic and popular interest in the question of what it would take for an AI to be conscious. A number of authors have recently suggested that it may be possible to construct conscious AIs in the near future. Existing work has tended to focus on supporting this claim by surveying the commitments of a wide range of...
October 20, 2026 Simon Goldstein, Cameron Domenico Kirk-Giannini
Abstract This chapter applies to AIs the set of necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for a system to be phenomenally conscious according to global workspace theory (GWT) developed in Chapter 7. It begins by considering how language model agents fare by the lights of these conditions. It argues that existing language model agent architectures could be modified in straightforward ways to...
October 20, 2026 Simon Goldstein, Cameron Domenico Kirk-Giannini
Abstract The arguments in preceding chapters leave significant uncertainty about whether AIs have welfare. This uncertainty stems from three sources. First, there is uncertainty about what is required for welfare subjecthood: Is it agency, consciousness, or sentience? Second, there is uncertainty about what it takes to have beliefs and desires, consciousness, pleasure, and displeasure. Third,...
October 20, 2026 Simon Goldstein, Cameron Domenico Kirk-Giannini
Abstract This chapter clears the ground for subsequent discussion of consciousness and sentience in AIs by addressing two methodological issues pertaining to the study of consciousness. First, it considers whether the study of consciousness presents specially intractable metaphysical difficulties, focusing on arguments against physicalism from the possibility of phenomenal zombies and the...
arXiv Preprint Archive October 15, 2024 Simon Goldstein, Cameron Domenico Kirk-Giannini preprint
It is generally assumed that existing artificial systems are not phenomenally conscious, and that the construction of phenomenally conscious artificial systems would require significant technological progress if it is possible at all. We challenge this assumption by arguing that if Global Workspace Theory (GWT) - a leading scientific theory of phenomenal consciousness - is correct, then...