Claire Sergent is taking part in the “AI & Consciousness Workshop”

 

“Can we create a conscious artificial intelligence?”

This is the central question of the “Artificial Intelligence and Consciousness” workshop, organized by Atelier 4 – Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence of Coggames, taking place on June 12–13 at PSL in Paris.

The goal of this event is to foster interdisciplinary dialogue on consciousness, bridging cognitive scienceneuroscienceartificial intelligence, and developmental robotics.
At a time when AI and large language models are transforming our lives, it is essential to explore the convergences between natural and artificial intelligence, and the current limits of modeling consciousness.

Some of the key questions we’ll explore include:

  • What mechanisms are still missing in AI compared to human intelligence?
  • Can intelligence exist without embodiment?
  • What makes humans unique? Consciousness? Tool use? Creativity?

International experts from diverse disciplines (science, technology, art) will share their perspectives, including:

The neural basis of conscious access in humans, beyond decision-making: an update to the global workspace model
In this presentation I will sketch out the current state of the art regarding the neural correlates of conscious processing of an external stimulus in humans, as well as current challenges. While most of our knowledge relies on situations where participants have to report whether they have perceived the stimulus or not, the main current challenge is to study the mechanisms of conscious processing in the general case, in the absence of report or decision to make. I will show experimental studies that help us approach such general mechanisms of conscious processing. I will propose an update of the global workspace model of consciousness that can accommodate these new results, and tackle the mechanisms of conscious processing in the general case. Finally I will discuss how this cognitive neuroscience perspective can inform our questionings about consciousness in AI.
 
Claire Sergent is a Professor of Cognitive Neurosciences at Université Paris Cité / CNRS, in the Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition Center. Her central topic of research relates to the psychological and neural mechanisms of conscious access, notably in vision and audition. She leads the ERC CONSCIOUSBRAIN project, that aims at characterising the neural dynamics associated with conscious processing in humans, and using this knowledge to design diagnostic tools for patients with disorders of consciousness (e.g. unresponsive wakefulness or minimal consciousness syndroms). She uses experimental psychology, human electrophysiology (electroencephalography, magnetoencephalography, intracranial recordings) and functional MRI as her main investigation tools. She is a co-director of Paris’ Master Program in Cognitive Sciences.

 

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