For those keeping up with the conversations about AI, beyond the hour-by-hour flip flopping about whether it will create hell or heaven on Earth, all driven by the hype merchants behind it and their critics, the most vigorous seems to be about whether AI is conscious or not. Now this is worth addressing, of course, but the entire conversation has a problem it usually fails to acknowledge. And it’s this. We don’t know what consciousness is.
Now you would think that would be a bit of a problem but it doesn’t stop people from bloviating on the issue at length and from different viewpoints. This may be because the idea of consciousness is one we assume we understand because it is so obvious to us that we are conscious.
However, there is no consensus on the matter. Experts may agree on certain general aspects of a definition but not on the details. There are four major competing scientific theories on the issue and a number of contenders waiting to join them. This is not the place to bore you with them.
Obviously, it’s not just psychologists and neuroscientists who have grappled with the issue. Philosophers have had their say too. Sometimes they have relied on the same reasoning that we use to convince ourselves: it is obvious because we feel it to be. As the philosopher Thomas Nagel famously formulated it: “something that it is like to be.”
Studies of consciousness in other species often frame it as an awareness of a mind. That is useful. But it doesn’t address the issue of whether we should assume other beings have the same type of consciousness as us. Because they don’t, and it’s not even an assumption we can make about members of our own species. For example, one of the most profoundly life altering discoveries I’ve made in recent years is that a large proportion of people don’t have an inner voice with which they hold conversations and develop ideas. They perceive, think and create, but not in the same way. For those of us who have a voice that won’t shut up, this changes any assumptions we might make about how the minds of other people function.
Consciousness is one of the ways in which make sense of the world. We take it for granted on a minute-by-minute basis because we have to for our own sanity and survival. It is one of a bundle of reassuring notions we rely on to get through life. They are not myths, but they are ideas we cling on to. They include things like the self, free will and time.
We usually take them for granted because we have to. It’s when we peer behind the curtain that we discover, they are not easy assumptions we should make. When we combine this complexity with other human dispositions, such as pattern recognition and anthropomorphism, we need to be very wary of making declarations about whether AI is conscious or not.
Mark is the publisher of Workplace Insight, IN magazine, Works magazine and is the European Director of Work&Place journal. He has worked in the office design and management sector for over thirty years as a journalist, marketing professional, editor and consultant.
This was originally published in issue 21 of Works Magazine
September 18, 2026
Before trying to work out whether AI can be conscious, we need to work out what consciousness is
by Mark Eltringham • AI, Comment, Wellbeing
Now you would think that would be a bit of a problem but it doesn’t stop people from bloviating on the issue at length and from different viewpoints. This may be because the idea of consciousness is one we assume we understand because it is so obvious to us that we are conscious.
However, there is no consensus on the matter. Experts may agree on certain general aspects of a definition but not on the details. There are four major competing scientific theories on the issue and a number of contenders waiting to join them. This is not the place to bore you with them.
Obviously, it’s not just psychologists and neuroscientists who have grappled with the issue. Philosophers have had their say too. Sometimes they have relied on the same reasoning that we use to convince ourselves: it is obvious because we feel it to be. As the philosopher Thomas Nagel famously formulated it: “something that it is like to be.”
Studies of consciousness in other species often frame it as an awareness of a mind. That is useful. But it doesn’t address the issue of whether we should assume other beings have the same type of consciousness as us. Because they don’t, and it’s not even an assumption we can make about members of our own species. For example, one of the most profoundly life altering discoveries I’ve made in recent years is that a large proportion of people don’t have an inner voice with which they hold conversations and develop ideas. They perceive, think and create, but not in the same way. For those of us who have a voice that won’t shut up, this changes any assumptions we might make about how the minds of other people function.
Consciousness is one of the ways in which make sense of the world. We take it for granted on a minute-by-minute basis because we have to for our own sanity and survival. It is one of a bundle of reassuring notions we rely on to get through life. They are not myths, but they are ideas we cling on to. They include things like the self, free will and time.
We usually take them for granted because we have to. It’s when we peer behind the curtain that we discover, they are not easy assumptions we should make. When we combine this complexity with other human dispositions, such as pattern recognition and anthropomorphism, we need to be very wary of making declarations about whether AI is conscious or not.
Mark is the publisher of Workplace Insight, IN magazine, Works magazine and is the European Director of Work&Place journal. He has worked in the office design and management sector for over thirty years as a journalist, marketing professional, editor and consultant.
This was originally published in issue 21 of Works Magazine