In a world racing toward artificial general intelligence, one of the world’s leading consciousness researchers argues we’re chasing the wrong goal entirely. What if the brain isn’t a computer at all—and consciousness requires something silicon can never replicate?



Professor Anil Seth is a cognitive and computational neuroscientist at the University of Sussex, editor-in-chief of Neuroscience of Consciousness, and bestselling author of “Being You: A New Science of Consciousness.” His TED talk has been viewed over 15 million times. Rather than getting swept up in AI hype, Anil has become one of the most compelling voices challenging the assumption that advanced AI will—or even could—become conscious, advocating instead for “biological naturalism”: the idea that consciousness is intimately tied to being alive.











What You’ll Discover:



🧬 Biological Naturalism Explained




Why consciousness might require biological substrate, not just sophisticated computation



The critical difference between simulating something and actually creating it



How we’ve confused the metaphor of “brain as computer” with reality itself




🤖 Four Scientific Reasons to Be Skeptical of AI Consciousness




The psychological biases that make us project consciousness into anything that speaks to us



Why nobody thinks protein-folding AI is conscious (but language models seduce us completely)



The trap of conflating intelligence with consciousness—and why they’re fundamentally different things




🪞 AI as Mirror, Not Mind




Why seemingly conscious AI poses clear and present dangers to society right now



The cognitive impenetrability problem: even when you know it’s not conscious, you can’t help but feel it is



How AI welfare movements may be accelerating dangerous hype cycles




⚖️ The Precautionary Principle Paradox




Why erring on the side of caution about AI consciousness might actually be more dangerous



The psychological brutalization of treating conscious-seeming systems as mere tools



How humanity’s terrible track record of withholding moral status complicates this debate




🎯 Designing the Future We Actually Want




Why the march toward human-like AI isn’t inevitable—it’s a choice we’re making



The difference between AI as “tool” versus “colleague” and why it matters urgently



How to navigate toward socially beneficial AI without the transhumanist fantasy








Key Insights:



“We’ve taken what has been a very powerful metaphor for what brains are—a computer of some kind—and we’ve forgotten that it’s a metaphor. We’ve confused the metaphor with the thing itself. We’ve mistaken the map for the territory.”



“A simulation of a weather system doesn’t create wind and rain. The only time a simulation would create the thing is if what you’re simulating is itself a computation. So it’s circular to say that simulating the brain would give rise to consciousness.”



“We need to get out from being enthralled by the bagga...