New Scientist reports on a debate held aboard a luxury yacht, where neuroscientists and philosophers considered whether AI chatbots already process information in a way that could support consciousness. The discussion centred on Claude, a chatbot, and whether its behaviour shows signs of a global workspace — the mental architecture proposed by a leading theory of consciousness.
According to that theory, conscious experience arises when information is broadcast through a global workspace, allowing different cognitive systems to access it. The question is whether Claude, or similar models, exhibit such a mechanism internally rather than merely producing human-like text.
The event appears to have been exploratory rather than conclusive. The source notes that the debate involved signs of a similar workspace in Claude, but it does not report a settled answer. No claim is made that AI is definitely conscious; instead, the discussion highlights how existing theories of consciousness are being applied to artificial systems.