David P. Reichert
@david-p-reichert.bsky.social
AI researcher at Google DeepMind -- views on here are my own.
Interested in cognition & AI, consciousness, ethics, figuring out the future.
Interested in cognition & AI, consciousness, ethics, figuring out the future.
+1 to that these papers are more about consciousness than "thinking" (and personally I think there's good reasons to disagree with the stronger positions expressed in these papers: davidpreichert.substack.com/p/is-biology...)
Is biology necessary for consciousness? A response to Seth's paper on biological naturalism
In this post, I explain why I think that Anil Seth’s recent paper does not make a conclusive argument that phenomenal consciousness is inherently biological and that therefore artificial intelligence ...
davidpreichert.substack.com
November 25, 2025 at 3:19 PM
+1 to that these papers are more about consciousness than "thinking" (and personally I think there's good reasons to disagree with the stronger positions expressed in these papers: davidpreichert.substack.com/p/is-biology...)
Of course a bot had to chip in...
(no pun intended)
(no pun intended)
October 15, 2025 at 1:40 PM
Of course a bot had to chip in...
(no pun intended)
(no pun intended)
So Reinforcement Learning generally talks about agents, AlphaGo (Go playing AI) would be an example, etc.
(of course either way, this does not entail agency in a morally relevant sense, as the paper says)
(of course either way, this does not entail agency in a morally relevant sense, as the paper says)
October 15, 2025 at 1:08 PM
So Reinforcement Learning generally talks about agents, AlphaGo (Go playing AI) would be an example, etc.
(of course either way, this does not entail agency in a morally relevant sense, as the paper says)
(of course either way, this does not entail agency in a morally relevant sense, as the paper says)
Thanks for sharing! A minor point, but: "AI agents" being "specific to the AI safety and cybersecurity literature" seems overly narrow. In the context of AI I'd more generally understand an agent to be something that needs to autonomously take actions in an environment.
October 15, 2025 at 1:07 PM
Thanks for sharing! A minor point, but: "AI agents" being "specific to the AI safety and cybersecurity literature" seems overly narrow. In the context of AI I'd more generally understand an agent to be something that needs to autonomously take actions in an environment.
TLDR: Seth makes many valid points, but the case for biological naturalism isn't clear-cut IMO. In either case, I don't think his conclusion quite follows from the premises.
Ultimately, uncertainty still wins out for me.
Ultimately, uncertainty still wins out for me.
September 29, 2025 at 10:22 AM
TLDR: Seth makes many valid points, but the case for biological naturalism isn't clear-cut IMO. In either case, I don't think his conclusion quite follows from the premises.
Ultimately, uncertainty still wins out for me.
Ultimately, uncertainty still wins out for me.