Are animals and AI conscious? We’ve devised new theories for how to test this

By Colin Klein, Professor, School of Philosophy, Australian National University
Andrew Barron, Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University

You might think a honey bee foraging in your garden and a browser window running ChatGPT have nothing in common. But recent scientific research has been seriously considering the possibility that either, or both, might be conscious.

There are many different ways of studying consciousness. One of the most common is to measure how an animal – or artificial intelligence (AI) – acts.

But two new papers on the possibility of consciousness in animals and AI suggest new theories for how to…

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