Computational Consciousness: CIMC X Berlin
Date: September 11, 2026
Location: Foresight AI Node @CIC, Berlin
Format: One-day in-person salon/conference, followed by an evening social
Attendance: Invite and application-only.
Computational Consciousness is a one-day conference in Berlin convening researchers, builders, philosophers, funders, and entrepreneurs working at the frontier of machine consciousness and future minds.
What if consciousness is computational? This event centers on some of the most consequential problems now emerging across AI, neuroscience, philosophy, and long-term futures: What would it take to build, emulate, or recognize a conscious system? What can current AI systems — including transformer architectures, foundation models, AI agents, and mechanistic interpretability — teach us about machine consciousness? And how do these questions connect with adjacent fields such as neuroadaptive AI, brain-computer interfaces, whole brain emulation, and mind uploading? If consciousness can be implemented in non-biological substrates, what ethical and societal questions arise around the future of minds?
Hosted by the California Institute for Machine Consciousness in partnership with the Foresight AI Node, Computational Consciousness is designed as a high-context one-day salon/conference. The program will combine keynotes, short-form intro talks, larger group discussions, and curated social time.
The goal is to treat machine consciousness as a growing research domain requiring conceptual precision, technical seriousness, and ethical foresight.
CIMC’s work is grounded in the view that consciousness should be approached through formal models, computational architectures, empirical tests, and philosophical clarity.
We hope to bring this framework into conversation with the Berlin and wider European ecosystem around AI, whole brain emulation, neurotechnology, artificial sentience, and long-term futures; and create a memorable setting for intellectually ambitious and still too rare conversations.
Core themes include:
Machine consciousness
Transformer architectures
Foundation models and AI agents
Mechanistic interpretability
Whole brain emulation
Mind uploading
Neuroadaptive AI
Brain-computer interfaces
Artificial sentience
Digital personhood
Cognitive architectures
AI welfare and moral status
Computational theories of mind
The long-term future of minds
Program Highlights (more to come, full program to be published soon) :
Speakers:
Joscha Bach (CIMC) - What would it mean for a machine to be conscious?
Franz Hildebrandt-Harangoz (CIMC) - The Phenomenological Profile of Conscious Experience
Trent McConaghy (Xtropi) - NeuroAI: Notes from the Frontier of Mind Decoding
Chris Percy ( The Consciousness Foundation) - The complex links between AI safety and AI consciousness: What can we do short of whole brain emulation?
Dr. Thorsten O. Zander (Zander Labs) - The Neuroadaptive Alignment Shortcut
Dr. Virginie Van Wassenhove - Title TBD
Bradley Clarke (Foresight Institute) - Title TBD
Linus Eickhoff (CIMC) - WHY the f* do we care about NCA?
Leander Rust (CIMC) - Zebrafish, Worms, and Wind Turbines: Mapping the Search Space for Consciousness
Aleksandr Groznykh (CIMC) - Self-Organizing Generative Perception
Hikari Sorensen (CIMC) - Defending Computational Functionalism
Priska Herger and Dr. Jochen Kerdels (CIMC) - Coherent Active State Dynamics in Self-Organizing Systems
Eva Gentner (University of Exeter) - Aesthetics of Consciousness: On Perception, Judgment, and the Structure of Experience
Kei Kreutler (The Protocol Institute) - Interior Computing
Patricia Craja (Amalie AI) - From Personality to Perceptual Architecture — charting how minds differ and develop
Kazik Pogoda (Xemantic / Foresight Institute) - Golem XIV - Autonomous metacognitive AI system with semantic memory and self-directed research
Angie Normandale (Aintelope) - Title TBD
Demos & Art:
Antonia Antonova (CIMC) - Machine consciousness engineering project demos
Brxs (Daniel Peter) - LSDJ, DJ the latent space: An instrument for real-time AI music. Prompt two decks, blend them like vinyl, and invent genres as you play.
Special Social & Dinner
After the main event, we will head over together to grab some drinks and enjoy Flammkuchen together, just a quick 5-minute walk from the venue!
Location: Freischwimmer, Vor dem Schlesischen Tor 2
Want to give a talk, or demo? Submit a talk proposal here
We are seeking aligned funding partners for this event. To start a conversation, please contact Lou de K at lou@cimc.ai.
Thank you to our partners Ocean Protocol, Zander Labs and Foresight Institute for making this event possible.