This essay describes our philosophical position on machine consciousness, including what we mean by “machine” and “consciousness,” and the epistemological and metaphysical assumptions we make in approaching the question.
It should be understood as a high-level overview of our core position and the ideas that inform it. We’re also working on a series of papers that address several of those ideas in greater depth and resolution.
Outline:
Machine consciousness
- Making sense of the ‘Hard Problem’
- Computationalism
- Functionalism
- Computationalist functionalism
What do we mean by ‘consciousness’?
- Mind, Self and Consciousness
- The mind does not have to be home to a self
- The phenomenology of consciousness
Correlates of consciousness
- The operation of consciousness
- The Genesis Hypothesis
- Genesis: How consciousness creates the world and the self in the mind
Testing the Machine Consciousness Hypothesis as a way to understand human consciousness
- The Human Consciousness Hypothesis
- The extended Machine Consciousness Hypothesis
- Why there can be no “Turing Test for consciousness”
- Universality
Machine Consciousness: Integrating Theory, Technology, and Philosophy
As part of this collaboration, we are highlighting the upcoming AAAI Spring Symposium on Machine Consciousness, to be held April 7–9, 2026 in Burlingame, California.
The symposium will bring together researchers from AI, cognitive science, philosophy, and related fields to address foundational questions, including:
How can (phenomenal) consciousness be formally defined?
How might consciousness be measured in artificial systems?
What would it take to build conscious machines?
What ethical considerations arise from such efforts?
The symposium welcomes full papers (6–8 pages), extended abstracts (2 pages), and position papers (4–6 pages).
Submission deadline: January 23, 2026.
This event reflects a growing recognition within the AI research community of the importance of engaging rigorously with questions of consciousness—both theoretical and practical.
→ Submit a Research Proposal
All info here
→ Collaborate or Fund
If you’re interested in supporting or partnering with us, email: proposals@cimc.ai
→ Join our Machine Consciousness Salons
Regularly hosted in San Francisco: Luma calendar
Thanks for reading our CIMC publication! Feel free to forward this to anyone who muses over the inner minds of systems