Anil Seth

Consciousness Depends on Life, Not Computation Alone

In a TED talk, neuroscientist Anil Seth argues that artificial intelligence is unlikely to become conscious because intelligence and consciousness are different kinds of phenomena. Seth says large language models can simulate talk about inner life because they are trained on human text, but that fluency should not be mistaken for experience; in his account, consciousness is tied not to computation alone but to the biology of living systems. The near-term risk, he argues, is not sentient AI but machines that seem conscious enough for people to project feelings, rights or authority onto them.