Consciousness & Reality (C&R) 2025-26 Series: Inaugural Colloquium IDENTITY AND CONSCIOUSNESS IN LARGE LANGUAGE MODELS
Wednesday, Oct 29th, 10 a.m. Pacific Time
Online-only event. Zoom link:
https://zoom.us/j/99505485799?pwd=fYOUh2gCTEuDgP8JlEq3ey2dvTr9Ip.1
DAVID CHALMERS
University Professor of Philosophy and Neural Science, New York University
Co-director of the NYU Center for Mind, Brain, and Consciousness
Can large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini be conscious? Can they be persons? What exactly are we talking to when we talk to a language model? I will briefly address the issue of LLM consciousness, and will address the issue of LLM identity in more depth. I will argue that the LLMs we interact with are at least quasi-agents with quasi-beliefs and quasi-desires, in a sense I will explain. They may fall short of being conscious beings with full-scale concepts and rationality, but even quasi-agency is enough to raise many crucial issues. I will also argue that the LLM quasi-agents that we interact with are best understood not as abstract models or even as hardware instances but as thread-bound quasi-agents, bound to conversation-based memory threads. I will draw some parallels with the TV show Severance.
INTRODUCTION BY CHRISTOF KOCH
Neuroscientist and Meritorious Investigator, Allen Institute
Chief Scientist, Tiny Blue Dot Foundation
INTRODUCTION BY STUART HAMEROFF
Emeritus Professor of Anaesthesiology, University of Arizona (UA)
Director of the Center for Consciousness Studies, UA
Arizona Astrobiology Center, UA
ABOUT THE EVENT
This lecture will be accessible to an interdisciplinary audience. Members from all divisions of the participating institutes and universities (Caltech, MIT, Cambridge, Oxford, Stanford, UA, UCB and IMICS) are welcome to join. Select questions from the Q&A window will be answered after the lecture.
ABOUT THE SERIES
The Consciousness & Reality colloquium series promotes interdisciplinary investigations on mind, cognition, consciousness, and the nature of reality. Recordings of previous C&R colloquia can be found on the Caltech and IMICS YouTube channels and on www.imics.org/seminars.