Could an LLM be conscious?

Take the question seriously and audit the candidate arguments: none are decisive, in either direction.

Moved the question from taboo to research agenda — the finding is that there is no finding, yet.

When we talk to AI, what are we talking to?2026

A physical system can't be conscious — only a simulation can. The brain runs a self-model, and consciousness is that model perceiving its own perceiving. So the substrate question is the wrong one: ask whether the system builds the right virtual self.

Reframes the LLM case away from 'is silicon the wrong stuff?' toward 'does it run a self-model that attends to its own attention?'

Cyber Animism2024

'Is it conscious?' is a badly-posed question. Consciousness is relational — a matter of relating, of modeling others and modeling yourself. Asking in the absolute whether a system is conscious is like asking whether the Russian or the English word for green is the correct one.

Dissolved the yes/no framing: the question becomes in what sense and in what relationship, not whether some inner property is switched on.

We Merged With Machines a Long Time Ago (with Carlo Rovelli)2026