1/2 Why AI is unlikely to become conscious – my 2026 @TEDTalks is now online. What do you think about the prospects for 'conscious AI'? ted.com/talks/anil_set…
1/ Theories of Consciousness – out now in @NatRevNeurosci. In this review (and mild manifesto), Tim Bayne & I survey the current landscape of theories of consciousness (ToCs), examine how they relate to each other and to empirical data … nature.com/articles/s4158…
The great Daniel Dennett has died. Terribly sad news. He was a wonderful philosopher and a wonderful human being. I will miss him greatly as I know so many others will too.
1/3 @geoffreyhinton once said that the future depends on some graduate student being suspicious of everything he says (via @lexfridman). He also said was that it was impossible to find biologically plausible approaches to backprop that scale well: radical.vc/geoffrey-hinto….
1/ IIT can and should be critiqued, but this letter, despite many admirable signatories (& colleagues/friends) is disappointing. The accusation of pseudoscience is serious & clickbaity & IMO the letter doesn't justify it psyarxiv.com/zsr78/
1/🧵 New (long) preprint: Biological naturalism and conscious artificial intelligence. In which I explore the prospects for, and pitfalls of, AI that is, or irresistibly appears to be, conscious. @SussexCentre .@CIFARnews osf.io/preprints/psya…#ExMachina
1/ A milestone I had hoped not to mark. Today is 6 months since my COVID infection, and I’m still on my #LongCovid journey. Time for a few thoughts. Longish 🧵👇🏽
1/🧵 I am absolutely delighted to be awarded the 2023 Michael Faraday Prize (& Lecture) from the @royalsociety, which is awarded annually “to the scientist or engineer whose expertise in communicating scientific ideas in lay terms is exemplary” royalsociety.org/grants-schemes…
The Michael Faraday Prize and Lecture 2023 is awarded to Professor Anil K Seth for his ability to inspire and communicate concepts and advances in cognitive neuroscience and consciousness, and therefore what it means to be human, to the public. #RSMedalsroyalsociety.org/grants-schemes…
Interesting that the Cambridge dictionary chose 'hallucinate' as their word-of-the-year largely because of the idea that LLMs 'hallucinate'. I continue to think this is an unfortunate & misleading term, and that LLMs *confabulate* rather than hallucinate