AI Sessions #9: The Case Against AI Consciousness (with Anil Seth)

We are joined by Anil Seth for a deep dive into the science, philosophy, and ethics surrounding the topic of AI and consciousness. Anil outlines and defends his view that the brain is not a computer, or at least not a digital computer, and explains why he is sceptical that merely making AI systems smarter or more capable will produce consciousness. Anil Seth is a neuroscientist, author, and professor at the University of Sussex, where he directs the Centre for Consciousness Science. His research spans many topics, including the neuroscience and philosophy of consciousness, perception, and selfhood, with a focus on understanding how our brains construct our conscious experiences. His bestselling book Being You: A New Science of Consciousness was published in 2021. He is the English-language winner of the 2025 Berggruen Prize Essay Competition for his essay “The Mythology of Conscious AI”, which develops ideas in his recent article, “Conscious Artificial Intelligence and Biological Naturalism.”Conspicuous Cognition is a reader-supported publication. To receive all new posts, access the complete archive, and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber.Topics* What we mean by “consciousness” (subjective experience / “what it’s like”) vs intelligence.* Whether general anaesthesia and dreamless sleep are true “no consciousness” baselines.* Psychological biases pushing us to ascribe consciousness to AI* How impressive current AI/LLMs really are, and whether “stochastic parrots” is too dismissive* Whether LLMs “understand”, and the role of embodiment/grounding in genuine understanding* Computational functionalism: consciousness as computation + substrate-independence, and alternative functionalist flavours* Main objections to computational functionalism* Whether the brain is a computer* Simulation vs instantiation * Arguments for biological naturalism* Predictive processing and the free energy principle * What evidence could move the debate* The ethics surrounding AI consciousness and welfare. Transcript(Please note that this transcript is AI-edited and may contain minor errors).Dan Williams: Welcome back. I’m Dan Williams, back with Henry Shevlin. And today we are honoured to be joined by the great Anil Seth. Anil is one of our most influential and insightful neuroscientists and public intellectuals, working on a wide range of different topics, including the focus of today’s conversation, which is consciousness — and more specifically, the question of AI and consciousness.Could AI systems, either as they exist today or as they might develop over the coming years and decades, be conscious? Could they have subjective experiences? In a series of publications that have been getting a lot of attention from scientists and philosophers, Anil has been defending a somewhat sceptical answer to that question, arguing that consciousness might be essentially entangled with life — with biological properties and processes of living organisms — which, if true, would suggest that no matter how intelligent AI systems become, they would nevertheless not become conscious. He’s also argued that the consequences of getting this question wrong in either direction — attributing consciousness where there is none, or failing to attribute consciousness when there is — are enormous: socially, politically, morally.So in this conversation, we’re going to be asking Anil to elaborate on this perspective, see what the arguments are, and generally pick his brain about these topics. Anil, maybe we can start with the most basic preliminary question in this area: when we ask whether ChatGPT is conscious, or any other system is conscious, what are we asking? What’s meant by consciousness there?Anil Seth: Well, thanks, Dan. Let me first say thank you for having me on — it’s a great pleasure to be chatting with you, my Sussex colleague Dan, and my longtime sparring partner about these issues, Henry. I’m very much looking forward to this conversation.I think you set it up beautifully. It’s a deep intellectual question which involves both philosophy and science, and it’s a deeply important practical question, because the consequences of getting it wrong either way are very significant.You’re also right that the first step is to be clear about what we’re talking about. For a while, there was this easy slippage where people would talk about AI and intelligence and artificial general intelligence — which is supposedly the int