Do AIs already process information in a way that gives rise to consciousness?
A leading theory of consciousness explains experience as information flowing through a global workspace in the mind. On board a luxury yacht, neuroscientists and philosophers recently debated signs of a similar workspace in the chatbot Claude
On Baltra Island in the Galapagos, a group of philosophers and neuroscientists from the International Center for Consciousness Studies convene to discuss the enigma of whether entities like chatbots possess consciousness. Amidst excursions and meals, they grapple with the "distribution problem" – the challenge of determining whether non-human beings have inner lives.
Professor Ned Block, a renowned philosopher from New York University, points out this issue could be solved by comparing information processing in brains and machines. During a workshop, the attendees learn that Anthropic, an AI company, published a paper suggesting that Claude, a chatbot, may exhibit a form of artificial consciousness akin to the human mind’s "global workspace".
This workspace, according to one leading hypothesis, is the seat of consciousness where sights, sounds, thoughts, and feelings become aware. The concept of "access consciousness" refers to the availability of information for report and reasoning, while "phenomenal consciousness" refers to the subjective experience itself. The global neuronal workspace theory (GNWT) is believed to address access consciousness, positing that the brain's processing occurs in specialized modules.
Information becomes conscious when sent to the global workspace, where it integrates into our mental model of the world and becomes available for other areas of the brain. The workspace is also accessible to working memory, allowing us to retain information even after an event has ended. Evidence supporting the existence of the global workspace comes from experiments where participants are flashed images that only become conscious after a brief period.
When participants are aware of the target, a surge of activity occurs across a spread of neurons, a phenomenon referred to as "ignition". This theory may explain the common phenomenon of inattentional blindness, where people fail to notice events happening right in front of them due to competition for awareness. Block and Dehaene speculate that iguanas, sea lions, and blue-footed boobies observed during their island hikes could potentially have thought and feeling, even if they cannot report their inner experiences.
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