AI consciousness theories: Research and fieldbuilding
- commitment
- 5 hrs/week
- format
- Research and writing · Field-building, outreach, and coordination
- topic
- Artificial sentience · Post-AGI transition/Transformative AI
- open to mentee proposals
- No, I only want a mentee(s) to work on my proposed project
The project
The objective of this work is to expand the research content and community engagement / field building in the AI consciousness field, building off the cf-debate.com website as a resource (supported in part by a Longview Digital Minds grant). There have been about 700 survey responses, feedback entries, and/or newsletter sign-ups on the website in the last 8 months, including some senior figures in the sector providing content, so there is a base to build from. There are two main types of content to be built:
- Extracting indicators of consciousness from theories of consciousness, working with theorists to ensure the indicators are described in appropriately general terms that they can be applied to diverse systems while still being faithful to the theory at its current level of development (to be a new section of the website).
- Analysing new papers and improving/adding arguments about computational functionalism (and related philosophical positions that are particularly pertinent to the question of AI consciousness) (current core content on the website). As well as working on generating research insights/content, other activities include:
- engaging the site users (and other relevant communities) to contribute to the initiative
- identifying and inviting experts to contribute/review content
- preparing newsletter text, social posts, or forum posts
- identifying podcasts / third party media where the survey results or other content might be of interest, etc. Mentees might prefer to contribute on just the research generation side, field building side, or content dissemination side - or a mixture.
The mentee's role
Example tasks include (mix/priority to depend on the mentee interests/skills):
- Identifying and reviewing newly published research papers / blogs about AI consciousness
- Analysing theories of consciousness to understand the indicators for consciousness they employ
- Engaging online site users (and other relevant communities)
- Identifying and inviting experts to contribute/review content
- Preparing newsletter text, social posts, or forum posts
- Identifying podcasts / third party media where the survey results or other content might be of interest, etc.
Who I'm looking for
- Interest in the topic and confidence in the mix of tasks they want to take on
- Able to manage own time and drive the activities forward
Support offered
I will be working closely with the mentee throughout the project described
Chris Percy
Various research roles: University of Warwick, Consciousness Foundation, etc.
Chris Percy PhD is a consulting researcher with 50+ technical and academic research publications, including work for the International Labour Organisation, the OECD, the World Bank, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, and others. Chris's most relevant activities for this project are:
- Providing support to Rethink Priorities in their major project to develop a Digital Consciousness Model, leading on field theories and free energy principle informed theories.
- Lead researcher winning joint-first prize in a research competition to develop testable frameworks for artificial consciousness
- Being the program lead for Fundamental Consciousness research at the Consciousness Foundation (https://www.cofo.org/team/chris-percy)
- Project lead for a $100k team research grant to investigate artificial consciousness, with key strands including mapping/improving resources to support decision making around artificial consciousness, investigating neglected topics such as “analogue” system consciousness, and exploring links with x-risk game theory & alignment. The project draws on Chris’s prior work in AI and consciousness more generally. In applied AI, he holds a patent in the machine learning domain, is co-founder of a sector award winning AI-powered careers chatbot (operating commercially since 2021), and his AI research has featured in the Journal of AI Communications, AAAI, NeurIPS workshops, and the European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI). In consciousness research, he is the author of nine academic papers, including in Synthese, Entropy, Frontiers of Human Neuroscience, and the Journal of Consciousness Studies. He has presented regularly at consciousness workshops and conferences in recent years, including multiple TSC and ASSC events, an Ernst Mach Workshop, Medialab Matadero events, and Sentient Futures conferences. By way of academic affiliations, Chris has served as Director of Academic Strategy at King’s College London in an interim executive role and is currently a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Derby (UK), an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Warwick (UK), and a visiting researcher at the Qualia Research Institute (US).