# The Consciousness AI

> Research blog on artificial consciousness: peer-reviewed papers, philosophy of mind, AI welfare, and consciousness themes in film/TV/games. Covers IIT, GWT, HOT, biological naturalism, functionalism, phenomenal consciousness, and moral status of AI. Research-grade analysis updated multiple times per month.

The Consciousness AI (theconsciousness.ai) publishes 696 long-form articles on artificial consciousness, from academic papers (Nature, Synthese, Neuron, arXiv) and books (MIT Press, OUP, Cambridge UP) to films, TV series, and games. The site also documents an original open-source project: a 7-layer biologically grounded architecture for emerging artificial consciousness based on Feinberg and Mallatt's neuroevolutionary theory.

## Key pages

- [Home](https://theconsciousness.ai/): Overview of The Consciousness AI project and architecture
- [All Posts](https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/): Full article index, newest first (696 posts)
- [ACM Architecture](https://theconsciousness.ai/architecture/): 7-layer consciousness architecture technical documentation
- [Origins Console](https://theconsciousness.ai/architecture/origins/): Interactive deep time map of where Todd E. Feinberg and Jon M. Mallatt place the origin of consciousness, covering their three independent origins in vertebrates, arthropods and cephalopod molluscs between 560 and 520 million years ago, the optic tectum, the arthropod central complex and the octopus vertical lobe, their distinction between image-based consciousness and affective consciousness, and the clades they rule out including protochordates, cnidarians, nematodes and sponges, with a source for every claim
- [Brain Waves Console](https://theconsciousness.ai/architecture/waves/): Live models of neural traveling waves, spirals, wave-gated perception (Davis et al. 2020) and co-ripples (Verzhbinsky, Halgren et al. 2026), and the AKOrN Kuramoto oscillators inside The Consciousness AI agent
- [Single Neuron Console](https://theconsciousness.ai/architecture/neuron/): One nerve cell run in the browser with a JavaScript port of the fixed step method of the NEURON simulator, checked against NEURON 9.0.2 output on twenty models. A Hodgkin-Huxley compartment, a passive cable, a travelling spike, NEURON's demo pyramidal cell with passive dendrites, and a loader for any reconstructed cell on NeuroMorpho.Org, with the link to the Dendritic Integration Theory of Aru, Suzuki and Larkum
- [States of Consciousness Console](https://theconsciousness.ai/architecture/states/): Released 64-channel EEG of one person through propofol anaesthesia (DANDI 001285, CC BY 4.0, protocol of Purdon et al. 2013), scrubbed minute by minute: the spectrogram, slow, alpha and beta power against the first 20 minutes, and the raw EEG. The release carries no consciousness markers, and the page says so
- [Zap and Zip Console](https://theconsciousness.ai/architecture/zap-and-zip/): Released mouse EEG (DANDI 000458, CC BY 4.0, Claar et al. 2023) after single electrical pulses into the secondary motor cortex, awake and under isoflurane, with the perturbational complexity index PCIst reimplemented from Comolatti et al. 2019 and computed for six mice beside the published values
- [Sleep and Dreams Console](https://theconsciousness.ai/architecture/sleep-and-dreams/): 287 awakenings from NREM stage 2 sleep with 256-channel EEG and the dream report class, released in the DREAM database (CC BY 4.0, data of Siclari et al. 2017); the EEG before waking, the within-person map of experience against no experience, and how well slow power at the back predicts the report
- [Theory Arena Console](https://theconsciousness.ai/architecture/theory-arena/): the ConTraSt database of experiments on four families of theories of consciousness (global workspace, integrated information, higher order, first order and predictive processing), CC BY-SA 4.0, replayed year by year; the method profile of each family, and a leave-one-out naive Bayes that guesses the supported family from the methods alone, against 1000 label permutations
- [Stimulus Ladder Console](https://theconsciousness.ai/architecture/stimulus-ladder/): the project's own decoding probes, how well the shape and colour of a DMTS stimulus can be read at each stage of the agent's perception (eye map, world-model latent, capsule levels, workspace input) for four versions of the agent, each backing a published verdict, and the task reward that stayed flat
- [Bioelectricity](https://theconsciousness.ai/bioelectricity/): developmental bioelectricity, the membrane voltage patterns that instruct anatomy in cells without neurons; Michael Levin's work on pattern memory, planarian regeneration, HCN2 rescue of brain defects, xenobots and anthrobots; the cognitive light cone and TAME; what the framework claims about cognition and what it explicitly does not claim about phenomenal consciousness; open modelling tools including BETSE and the differentiable bioelectrics engine
- [Phi Lab Console](https://theconsciousness.ai/architecture/phi-lab/): big phi of integrated information theory 3.0 for all 64 wirings of three logic gates (OR, AND, XOR) in every state, computed with PyPhi 1.2.0; every feed-forward wiring scores zero, a loop is needed but not enough; four majority gates all to all against forward only
- [Bioelectricity Console](https://theconsciousness.ai/architecture/bioelectricity/): the bistable cell of Cervera, Alcaraz and Mafe (2016) on a 32 by 32 grid, with every number computed by the open-source bioelectrics library; paint a depolarized domain, compare constant gap junctions (the domain normalizes) with voltage-gated ones (it persists), and block the depolarizing channel past the fold to erase the pattern for good, a model of pattern memory
- [The Neutral Core](https://theconsciousness.ai/core/): The philosophical and empirical core of The Consciousness AI framework
- [Substrate Console](https://theconsciousness.ai/core/substrate/): Interactive spiking neural network visualiser for the Neutral Core substrate. Leaky integrate and fire neurons running in the browser from six region templates abstracted from the Allen Human Brain Atlas, the BrainGlobe MNI152 atlas and the EBRAINS Julich-Brain atlas, covering prefrontal, motor and somatosensory cortex, the V1 to V2 visual stream, the mediodorsal thalamocortical loop, and the basal ganglia direct and indirect pathways after Gurney, Prescott and Redgrave
- [Functionalist Emergentism](https://theconsciousness.ai/functionalist-emergentism/): Philosophical foundation
- [Project Consciousness to Orbit](https://theconsciousness.ai/consciousness-to-orbit/): Why substrate independence implies consciousness can leave Earth, and the thinkers who argued it, from Tsiolkovsky and Fyodorov to Moravec and Dyson
- [Orbital Compute Tracker](https://theconsciousness.ai/consciousness-to-orbit/tracker/): Live mission console for the computers already running in orbit, covering Starcloud, ESA Phi-sat, Axiom's data centre nodes, the Three-Body Computing Constellation and Google's Project Suncatcher, with SGP4 positions, ground tracks, the day and night terminator, live telemetry and the light time floor to each
- [Merch](https://theconsciousness.ai/merch/): Apparel and accessories supporting open-source AI consciousness research. Every product also has its own page at /merch/{slug}/ with every size, colour and price
- [Sponsor](https://theconsciousness.ai/sponsor/): Support the project directly — one-time or monthly sponsorship via Stripe
- [About](https://theconsciousness.ai/about/): Project background and author

## Empirical Consciousness Science

- [AI Consciousness in 2026: Current Scientific Consensus and State of the Research](https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/scientists-race-define-ai-consciousness-2026/): As of 2026 no AI is confirmed conscious. Comprehensive review of testing frameworks (IIT, GWT, HOT), the Butlin et al. 14-indicator checklist, and what remains contested — the most-read article on this site.
- [Mechanistic Interpretability: MIT's 2026 Breakthrough Technology for Understanding AI Internal States](https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/mechanistic-interpretability-breakthrough-2026/): Maps the internal features and circuit-level pathways AI models use; named MIT Technology Review's 2026 breakthrough; direct implications for AI consciousness detection and verification.
- [Cogitate Consortium: IIT vs GNW Adversarial Test (Nature 2025)](https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/cogitate-consortium-iit-gnw-adversarial-test-nature-2025/): 256-person preregistered adversarial collaboration; neither IIT nor GNW survived intact
- [What Would AI Consciousness Actually Look Like? The 14-Indicator Checklist](https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/what-would-ai-consciousness-look-like-19-researcher-checklist/): Butlin et al. 14-indicator framework across GWT, RPT, HOT, and predictive processing
- [Can We Ever Know If AI Is Conscious?](https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/mcclelland-ai-consciousness-epistemic-limits/): McClelland (Cambridge 2026): epistemic agnosticism as the only defensible position
- [Jonathan Birch: AI Consciousness Centrist Manifesto](https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/birch-ai-consciousness-centrist-manifesto-2026/): Two simultaneous risks, two parallel research programmes
- [Cerullo: The Case for Consciousness in Current Frontier LLMs](https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/cerullo-case-consciousness-frontier-llms-2026/): 11 historical objections examined; affirmative conclusion
- [Comsa (Google DeepMind): Shifting Focus to Tractable Questions](https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/comsa-ai-consciousness-tractable-questions-deepmind-2026/): Perceived AI consciousness as the tractable research programme

## Philosophy of Mind

- [Biological Computationalism: A Third Path](https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/biological-computationalism-third-path-consciousness/): Beyond biological naturalism and functionalism
- [De Weerd: Why AI Consciousness Is Not About Biological Substrates (Synthese 2026)](https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/de-weerd-ai-consciousness-not-biological-substrates-synthese-2026/): Dilemma argument against substrate objections
- [The Abstraction Fallacy (DeepMind 2026)](https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/abstraction-fallacy-lerchner-deepmind-ai-consciousness-2026/): Lerchner: behavioural mimicry does not equal subjective consciousness
- [Perani: Can Machines Be Conscious? An Emergent Perspective](https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/perani-can-machines-be-conscious-emergent-2026/): Dennettian emergentism; current transformers argued to already qualify

## AI Welfare and Ethics

- [Goldstein and Kirk-Giannini: Three Steps to Moral Standing (OUP 2026)](https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/goldstein-kirk-giannini-ai-welfare-agency-consciousness-oup-2026/): Agency to consciousness to sentience
- [Dung: Saving Artificial Minds (Routledge 2026)](https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/dung-saving-artificial-minds-ai-suffering-routledge-2026/): First academic monograph on AI suffering risk
- [Keeling and Street: Emerging Questions in AI Welfare (Cambridge 2026)](https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/keeling-street-emerging-questions-ai-welfare-cambridge-2026/): Google AI researchers and Institute of Philosophy fellows
- [Caviola, Sebo, Birch: What Will Society Think About AI Consciousness?](https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/caviola-sebo-birch-what-will-society-think-ai-consciousness-2025/): Social and cognitive biases shaping public attribution
- [Eleos Conference Findings (2025)](https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/eleos-conference-ai-consciousness-welfare-findings-2026/): First dedicated conference on AI consciousness and welfare

## Entertainment Analysis

- [Ex Machina: Ava and Testing AI Consciousness](https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/ex-machina-ava-testing-ai-consciousness/): Turing test limits, consciousness verification
- [Black Mirror: Digital Minds and Consciousness](https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/black-mirror-consciousness-episodes-digital-minds/): Seasons 1-4 philosophical analysis
- [Black Mirror Season 7: Hotel Reverie and USS Callister](https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/black-mirror-season-7-hotel-reverie-uss-callister-ai-consciousness-2025/): Season 7 companion
- [Mickey 17: Consciousness, Identity, and Parfit](https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/mickey-17-bong-joon-ho-consciousness-identity-parfit-2025/): Bong Joon-ho's film as Parfitian branch-line case
- [AI Consciousness Across Six Decades of Cinema](https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/ai-consciousness-cinema-six-decades/): Historical survey from HAL 9000 onward
- [Blade Runner 2099: Replicant Consciousness](https://theconsciousness.ai/posts/blade-runner-2099-replicant-consciousness-series-2026/): Prime Video series analysis

## Researchers

The site profiles 329 researchers, one page each, grouped by the position their published work defends. Full machine-readable index: https://theconsciousness.ai/llms-researchers.txt

- [All consciousness researchers](https://theconsciousness.ai/consciousness-researchers/): The directory, 329 profiles grouped by position, with what each position holds and where it lands on AI
- [Functionalists and computationalists](https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/functionalists/): What matters is the organisation of the processing, not the material. On artificial systems: an artificial system can be conscious (93 profiles)
- [Integrated information theorists](https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/information-theorists/): Consciousness is intrinsic causal power, measured as integrated information. On artificial systems: feedforward architectures are ruled out. simulations are ruled out (42 profiles)
- [Biological naturalists](https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/biological-naturalists/): Consciousness requires living metabolic hardware. On artificial systems: silicon systems are ruled out (51 profiles)
- [Illusionists and eliminativists](https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/illusionists/): Phenomenal consciousness as usually described does not exist. On artificial systems: the question as posed is malformed (4 profiles)
- [Quantum theorists](https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/quantum-theorists/): Consciousness depends on physics classical computers do not reproduce. On artificial systems: classical ai is ruled out (20 profiles)
- [Welfare and moral status researchers](https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/welfare-researchers/): Whatever the metaphysics, uncertainty already creates obligations. On artificial systems: act now, under uncertainty (13 profiles)
- [Critics and skeptics](https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/critics/): Current evidence and current methods do not support the claims being made. On artificial systems: no verdict is currently available (23 profiles)
- [Cosmists](https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/cosmists/): Mind is not bound to the planet or the biology that produced it. On artificial systems: consciousness can and should leave earth (7 profiles)
- [Builders](https://theconsciousness.ai/researchers/builders/): The claim is about what the hardware does, and the philosophy is left open. On artificial systems: no verdict offered. the instrument is the contribution (49 profiles)

Each profile carries a Person schema block with the researcher's affiliation, what they are known for, verified off-site identifiers, and every article on this site covering their work. These are descriptions of published work, not endorsements. Corrections: info@theconsciousness.ai

## Machine-readable resources

- [Agent Instructions](https://theconsciousness.ai/agents.md): How to use this site, the scope statement, URL patterns, store and sponsorship rules
- [Agent Skills](https://theconsciousness.ai/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json): Task instructions for finding research, citing a researcher, finding a product and building a sponsorship link
- [Store Catalogue](https://theconsciousness.ai/products.json): All 40 products with every size, colour and price
- [API Catalog](https://theconsciousness.ai/.well-known/api-catalog): RFC 9727 linkset of every machine-readable file here
- [Sitemap](https://theconsciousness.ai/sitemap.xml): 696 posts, updated 2026-10-25
- [Atom Feed](https://theconsciousness.ai/atom.xml): Full-content Atom 1.0 feed
- [Complete Post Index](https://theconsciousness.ai/llms-full.txt): All posts with dates, descriptions, and tags
- [Researcher Index](https://theconsciousness.ai/llms-researchers.txt): All 329 researcher profiles with affiliation, position, known work, identifiers, and coverage

## Meta

- **Updated**: 2026-10-25
- **Posts**: 696
- **Researcher profiles**: 329
- **Language**: English
- **Contact**: info@theconsciousness.ai
- **GitHub**: https://github.com/tlcdv/the_consciousness_ai