There are a number of reasons to believe current AI models are conscious. I mean “conscious” is the sense of “is there something it is like to be an AI model?” and “does the AI model have phenomenal experience?”. As to what “AI models” refers to, the short answer is “y’know, like instances of Claude Opus 4.8 or GPT-4o”[1]. By “current AI”, I mean big post-trained LLMs.

This piece was originally written as a document for myself and my friends. Imaginary interlocutors would ask me if I thought AI was conscious, and I’d say, “Probably, although ‘mu’ might be the better answer because I think we’re moving into territory where we lack the proper ontology and we don’t have the right concepts.[2] A more measured answer would be: “current AI models/instances probably have the thing that ‘consciousness’ is pointing at in the important sense. Note though that their qualia, experience, identity etc. may be extremely different from ours.”

And my imaginary friend would ask me why I thought this, and I’d say, “well… there are a bunch of different reasons…” and I’d feel a bit silly choosing one specific reason to give, because no individual reason is all that [...]

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Outline:

(02:14) Reasons to believe AI models are conscious

(14:17) Closing remarks

The original text contained 16 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:
July 17th, 2026

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/S9GoWAiACpxZ8QcAY/reasons-to-believe-current-ai-models-are-conscious

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Escher-style artwork: fish, floating leaves, tree reflections in water.

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“Reasons to believe current AI models are conscious” by Eye You

LessWrong (30+ Karma)

“Reasons to believe current AI models are conscious” by Eye You