Conscious AI Meetup: What is the right architecture for studying consciousness?

​We would like to welcome you to another salon of the California Institute for Machine Consciousness.

The question whether LLMs may be conscious is fascinatingly divisive among AI researchers, philosophers, theologists and the general public, but hard to resolve. But because LLMs are generally accessible and work so well, LLMs have become the proverbial street light under which everyone is looking for their keys.

Unlike our nervous systems, it seems that transformer architectures do not need to be conscious to deliver their performance. What is so special about biological minds that they appear to require consciousness to work? Can we recreate these features as new AI systems? What is the best architecture to support and study consciousness on artificial substrates?

Please join us for this discussion; Joscha Bach will open it with a presentation.

Attendance is free; we appreciate if you bring non-alcoholic drinks and some snacks.