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Is today’s AI already conscious?

There is no good evidence that it is. A 2023 report by 19 researchers suggests no current AI system is conscious. It is one report, and consciousness in AI remains an open research question.

Checked on Oct 2, 2026

Short answer

ReportedNot supported

No current system

conscious, per a 2023 research report

The evidence

The report, “Consciousness in Artificial Intelligence: Insights from the Science of Consciousness,” was posted in August 2023 by 19 researchers. It surveys several prominent scientific theories of consciousness, derives “indicator properties” from them, and uses those indicators to assess several recent AI systems.1

Its conclusion, in the authors’ words: “Our analysis suggests that no current AI systems are conscious, but also suggests that there are no obvious technical barriers to building AI systems which satisfy these indicators.”1

So the accurate summary is that today’s chatbots are not shown to be conscious, and the question is still being studied. This page is labeled Reported because it rests on one report, not a settled finding.

What we don’t know

  • This is one report from 2023. It assessed the systems of that time, not necessarily today’s newest models, and we cite no newer assessment.
  • The report’s method rests on current scientific theories of consciousness (it names recurrent processing, global workspace, higher-order, predictive processing and attention schema theories). Whether those theories are right is not something this page can settle.
  • The report says nothing certain about the future. It says there are no obvious technical barriers to building systems that meet its indicators, which is different from saying such systems exist or will.
  • Why chatbots can sound so human is not covered by this source.
About the label. Reported means the source is real and official, but the claim is the source’s own and has not been independently checked. Our own arithmetic and opinions are marked as ours. Found a mistake? mike@ohmyai.ai. The short versions of all eight myths are on Myths vs Facts.

Sources for this page

  1. Consciousness in Artificial Intelligence: Insights from the Science of Consciousness (arXiv 2308.08708). Butlin, Long and 17 co-authors.Submitted Aug 2023 · abstract checked Oct 2, 2026