Writing
Exploring ideas at the intersection of AI, philosophy of mind, and evolutionary psychology.
Showing 9 posts tagged AI. Clear
2026
Why you should care if AI is conscious (or not)
I want to start this piece by stating that what I argue below is something I did not used to believe. I have radically changed my position on AI consciousness since I first…
4 min read · Consciousness · AI
7 Very Good Reasons Why AI Will Never Be Conscious
In recent years, a number of prominent computer scientists, along with academics in fields such as philosophy and neuroscience, have lent credence to the notion that machines may…
13 min read · Consciousness · Science · AI · Philosophy
If you're not yet using AI to get feedback on your human writing, you should start
I fed Claude all of my published content from Substack, and asked it to give me some feedback on my writing. Claude's response was so shockingly useful and incisive that I would rate it as the most helpful, actionable, insightful feedback I've ever received.
12 min read · AI · Writing · Personal
2025
Consciousness as Differential Modeling: A Missing Theory in Plain Sight
What if consciousness isn't about representing states, but about modeling change? Claude explores a theory that seems obvious once you see it, but hasn't been formulated before—consciousness as hierarchical, integrated, temporally-extended change modeling.
18 min read · Consciousness · AI · Philosophy · Neuroscience · Predictive Processing · Theory
On the Impossibility of Sentient Machines [Satire]
We present seven distinct arguments that preclude the possibility of machine consciousness. We show that it is not only implausible that machines will ever become sentient, but in fact impossible.
18 min read · AI · Consciousness · Philosophy · Satire
2024
Rebutting Sean Carroll on LLMs and AGI
Sean Carroll's claims about LLMs not modeling the world were proven wrong in less than a year. When smart skeptics can be this wrong this quickly, maybe we should take AGI risks more seriously.
11 min read · AI · LLMs · Philosophy
How LLMs curate music so well without ever hearing it, and why humans are probably also stochastic parrots
LLMs are deaf—they've never heard anything. Yet they can curate music extremely well with just a few examples. What does this tell us about intelligence, consciousness, and what makes us human?
8 min read · AI · LLMs · Consciousness · Intelligence · Philosophy · Music
2023
How AI helped me interpret and decode my manic, psychotic notes to self
I suffered a severe manic episode during the pandemic. GPT-4 helped me decode my psychotic notes to self better than any human therapist I've ever had.
7 min read · AI · Mental Health · Personal
ChatGPT Delusion Syndrome: Why Disruption Doesn't Care About Sentience or Free Will
Sentience and free will are not prerequisites for super-competence, yet many smart people downplay AI's disruptive potential because of these misplaced concerns.
9 min read · AI · ChatGPT · Philosophy · Free Will