Anil Seth's biological naturalism essay against AI consciousness draws mass commentary collection
anilkseth · x · 2026-09-30
Consciousness scientist Anil Seth published an essay in Behavioral and Brain Sciences arguing for "biological naturalism": consciousness depends on our nature as living organisms, not computation, so computation alone is unlikely to ground machine consciousness. He analyzes the biases that lead people to believe AI could become conscious. The essay drew extensive disagreement, and Cambridge has now published a large collection of scholarly responses alongside the article.
More from AGI Musings
- Why 'machine intelligence' beats AI: Claude Shannon thought MI was too flashy, so McCarthy coined AI — aran_nayebi · 2026-09-30
- Devs agree: consumers can't tell an AI chatbot from a 'personal agent' — it's just an implementation detail — jdjohnson · 2026-09-30
- Professor fled student AI slop for industry, now his colleagues produce it too — miniapeur · 2026-09-30
- Terence Tao defends calling out labs that use math results as marketing vehicles — littmath · 2026-09-30
- New AI models used to ship every 10 weeks — now it's every 11 days — Puzzleheaded-King584 · 2026-09-30
- From "we can't control AGI" to "embrace the merger": one researcher tracks the shifting Overton window — danfaggella · 2026-09-30