“AI Consciousness: A Centrist Manifesto” by J. Birch

One of my goals for this year was to write a piece setting out my own views on the topic of AI consciousness and the possible paths forward. I wrote it because I realized that I'd co-authored a string of pieces (Butlin et al. 2023; Long et al. 2024; Keeling et al. 2024; Caviola et al. 2025; Colombatto et al. 2025) and yet none of these quite captured my personal position as of 2025. I've also given media interviews but they're always a bad way to explain your views clearly. To make matters worse, I've seen over the past year extreme positions on both sides becoming entrenched. The debate has been acquiring some of the features of a toxic debate - two sides aggressively mocking each other, taking offence at each other's choice of words - when I think the best approach goes calmly down the middle, acknowledging [...] --- First published: August 28th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/sQi27D5aKeduipwaC/ai-consciousness-a-centrist-manifesto --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.