Murray Shanahan

Think your AI chatbot has become conscious? Here’s what to do. If you believe there’s a soul trapped inside ChatGPT, I have good news for you.

I get lots of emails from people who believe they've awoken consciousness within ChatGPT. If you come across anyone in that situation, please share this guide I wrote with them.

There's something more interesting going on here than just "delusional people are deluded."

www.vox.com/future-perfe...

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 convincing argument that phenomenal consciousness is inherently biological and that therefore artificial intelligence ...

Can only biological organisms ever be conscious?

Yes, argues @anilseth.bsky.social in a recent paper on biological naturalism.

I'm less convinced, and have written an in-depth response in a blog post here:

davidpreichert.substack.com/p/is-biology-necessary-for-consciousness

For more discussion of the "profoundly alien forms of consciousness" alluded to by @birchlse.bsky.social see here: arxiv.org/abs/2503.16348

Important work from @birchlse.bsky.social

Highly recommended read

1/8 🧵 GPT-5's storytelling problems reveal a deeper AI safety issue. I've been testing its creative writing capabilities, and the results are concerning - not just for literature, but for AI development more broadly. 🚨

Not me, but I guess that's a fundamental issue that Buddhism itself addresses

Frontiers in Gaslighting could be a whole new journal.

FYI - www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~mpsha/Shana...

UZH: 2 PhD Candidate Positions in Research Project Strengthening Resilience and Well-Being in Adolescents through Religion-Related AI and Digital Resources As part of the strategic orientation of the University of Zurich, the interdisciplinary University Research Priority Program (URPP) “Digital Religion(s)” is investigating from 2021 to 2032 how current...

New Job! Come and work with me! Hopefully towards a larger project!
jobs.uzh.ch/job-vacancie...

Somehow we missed this paper in ours. We will be sure to cite it in future revisions.

How does that song go? "You're so vain, you probably think this paper's about you" 🙂

"I'm writing an article on AI professors" 😬

Ah, but unlike human priests, some modern professors are indeed cumbersome and prone to over-heating

For most student assignments, using AI is like taking a forklift to the gym. What's the point? (Forklifts are useful, though, and being able to drive one is a useful skill.)

A couple of things about PROPHET, the book that @sinblache.bsky.social and I wrote during the pandemic, spurred by things people have asked me of late, because they intrigued me 1/

BBC Radio 4 - Last Word, Dame Cleo Laine, Hulk Hogan, Margaret Boden, Tom Lehrer Matthew Bannister on a singer, a wrestler, a cognitive scientist and a satirist.

Margaret Boden, giant of Cognitive Science and the Philosophy of AI, is one of the people whose lives will be remembered on BBC Radio 4’s Last Word programme tomorrow at 4pm UK time. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Her "Artificial Intelligence and Natural Man" (1977) was an important early philosophical take on AI. "The Creative Mind: Myths and Mechanisms" (1990) is a cornerstone of contemporary research in the field. Her introduction to Piaget (1979) was my introduction to Piaget.

Maggie Boden and Murray Shanahan on a panel in 2018

Very sad to learn of the death on 18th July of Margaret (Maggie) Boden, a titan of cognitive science and AI. I met her many times, and respected her greatly.
www.theargus.co.uk/memorials/de...

Raising the Bar for LLM Introspection • Grace Kind In "Does It Make Sense to Speak of Introspection in Large Language Models?" Iulia M. Comsa and Murray Shanahan define a lightweight definition of introspection that can be applied to language models.

Per Comsa and Shanahan, LLMs already do a type of "lightweight" introspection. What would a heavyweight version look like?

> New blog post: "Raising the Bar for LLM Introspection"

gracekind.net/blog/llmintr...

If you get drawn into a lengthy existential conversation with a chatbot, maybe think of it as a kind of fantasy role play, and don't lose touch with the reality outside your screen, the reality of the physical world and your fellow human beings. 4/4

However, a good explanation for much of the sophisticated behaviour we see in today's chatbots is that they are role-playing. 3/4

There are a great many open questions in the philosophy of mind, and there is little consensus on the topic of consciousness, particularly in the context of artificial intelligence. 2/4

I receive a steady stream of emails from people who have had fascinating conversations with chatbots, especially about consciousness, philosophy, or AI. Apologies to the senders, but I don't have the capacity to respond to these emails. 1/4

Fantastic talk by Shanahan Murray @assc28.bsky.social

Sophisticated exotic title but pretty clear idea ! 👇🏼

How do task dynamics impact learning in networks with internal dynamics?

Excited to share our ICML Oral paper on learning dynamics in linear RNNs!
with @clementinedomine.bsky.social @mpshanahan.bsky.social and Pedro Mediano

openreview.net/forum?id=KGO...

Well, that's why we call it a "lightweight" conception of introspection

Does It Make Sense to Speak of Introspection in Large Language Models? Large language models (LLMs) exhibit compelling linguistic behaviour, and sometimes offer self-reports, that is to say statements about their own nature, inner workings, or behaviour. In humans, such ...

Does It Make Sense to Speak of Introspection in Large Language Models? New paper with Iulia M. Comsa.
arxiv.org/abs/2506.05068

Viewpoint with Andrew Brown: AIs awaken ‘demigods’ (or so they say . . .) CHAT-GPT is driving people mad, and they are summoning demons, or they think they are. This is a new...

Very pleased w/this ref to my paper w/ @mpshanahan.bsky.social in @churchtimes.bsky.social by @seatrout.bsky.social (it rightly notes that MS and I take a neutral stance on such religious improvisations, but I am interested in -ve responses, religious and not) www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/202...

I'm struggling with whether this is a difference of kind or type to earlier spiritual and religious improvisations with technology...
But if you are interested in an anthropological take on these ideas and communities there is my 2024 paper w/ @mpshanahan.bsky.social: bvlsingler.com/2024/11/22/n...