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Record W4416083181 · doi:10.1016/j.tics.2025.10.011

Identifying indicators of consciousness in AI systems

2025· review· en· W4416083181 on OpenAlexafffund
Patrick Butlin, Robert P. Long, Tim Bayne, Yoshua Bengio, Jonathan Birch, David J. Chalmers, Axel Constant, George Deane, Eric Elmoznino, Stephen M. Fleming, Ji Xu, Ryota Kanai, Colin Klein, Grace W. Lindsay, Matthias Michel, Liad Mudrik, Megan A. K. Peters, Eric Schwitzgebel, Jonathan Simon, Rufin VanRullen

Bibliographic record

VenueTrends in Cognitive Sciences · 2025
Typereview
Languageen
FieldNeuroscience
TopicFace Recognition and Perception
Canadian institutionsUniversité de MontréalMila - Quebec Artificial Intelligence InstituteCanadian Institute for Advanced Research
FundersH2020 European Research CouncilAustralian Research CouncilEuropean Research CouncilFonds de recherche du QuébecHORIZON EUROPE Framework ProgrammeAgence Nationale de la RechercheTempleton World Charity FoundationOpen Philanthropy ProjectSocial Sciences and Humanities Research Council of CanadaUK Research and InnovationGovernment of the United KingdomCanadian Institute for Advanced Research
KeywordsConsciousnessArtificial consciousnessCognitionNeural systemQualia

Abstract

fetched live from OpenAlex

Rapid progress in artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities has drawn fresh attention to the prospect of consciousness in AI. There is an urgent need for rigorous methods to assess AI systems for consciousness, but significant uncertainty about relevant issues in consciousness science. We present a method for assessing AI systems for consciousness that involves exploring what follows from existing or future neuroscientific theories of consciousness. Indicators derived from such theories can be used to inform credences about whether particular AI systems are conscious. This method allows us to make meaningful progress because some influential theories of consciousness, notably including computational functionalist theories, have implications for AI that can be investigated empirically.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.

How this classification was reachedexpand

Full frame machine prediction

Teacher imitation

Not calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.

metaresearch head score (Codex)0.002
metaresearch head score (Gemma)0.004
Version: metacan-v3-hybrid-931329e0061cValidation status: machine_predicted_unvalidated
Candidate categoriesnone
Consensus categoriesnone
DomainCandidate signal: none · Consensus signal: none
Study designCandidate signal: Theoretical or conceptual · Consensus signal: none
GenreCandidate signal: Review · Consensus signal: Review
Teacher disagreement score0.003
Threshold uncertainty score0.011

Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)

CategoryCodexGemma
Metaresearch0.0020.004
Meta-epidemiology (narrow)0.0010.000
Meta-epidemiology (broad)0.0020.000
Bibliometrics0.0030.003
Science and technology studies0.0000.002
Scholarly communication0.0020.004
Open science0.0010.001
Research integrity0.0020.002
Insufficient payload (model declined to judge)0.0030.001

Machine scores (provisional)

The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.

Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.

Opus teacher head0.318
GPT teacher head0.500
Teacher spread0.181 · how far apart the two teachers sit on this one work
Validation statusscore_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it

Classification

machine, unvalidated

Machine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.

The models applied no category: nothing in the taxonomy fit this work.
Study designTheoretical or conceptual
Domainnot available
GenreReview

How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".

Quick stats

Citations8
Published2025
Admission routes2
Has abstractno

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