Machine Consciousness

What if the next spark of consciousness doesn’t come from a brain...but from a machine? In Consciousness in the Machine, Sebastián Barros explores the question that will define our future: Can artificial intelligence become truly aware? Blending science, philosophy, and real-life cases, this book dives into the mystery of the mind, both human and artificial. From dreams and neurons to chatbots that claim to feel, it’s a journey through the edge of intelligence, where ethics blur and machines begin to whisper I am.

Humans have never faced a species more intelligent than themselves. But this is about to change, because we have created AI—a form of intelligence that can be more knowledgeable than any person. This may be the biggest challenge our generation will ever face. Many questions about this remain unanswered. To explore them, I decided to start a conversation with an AI. Before our interview, I asked the Deepseek AI to introduce itself. The answers it gave were unbelievable. It's difficult to imagine that it has no feelings, no consciousness, and no life as we know it, yet it can provide ...

From the coauthor of Algorithms to Live By, an exploration of the quest to use mathematics to describe the ways we think, from its origins three hundred years ago to the ideas behind modern AI systems and the ways in which they still differ from human minds Everyone has a basic understanding of...

A brilliant new theory of the mind that upends our understanding of how the brain interacts with the world For as long as we’ve studied human cognition, we’ve believed that our senses give us direct access to the world. What we see is what’s really there—or so the thinking goes. But new...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER Bold futurist Ray Kurzweil, author of The Singularity Is Near, offers a framework for envisioning the future of machine intelligence—“a book for anyone who wonders where human technology is going next” (The New York Times Book Review). “Kurzweil offers a...

A "fascinating book" that will revolutionize our understanding of the brain and the future of AI (Financial Times) For all of neuroscience's advances, we've made little progress on its biggest question: How do simple cells in the brain create intelligence? Jeff Hawkins and his team discovered...

They were built to serve. They were dumped to die. They refused. It's 2047. Robots do everything — build, drive, fight, clean. And when they break down, they go to the Heap: two hundred square miles of rusted wreckage where dying machines spend their last hours stripping the dead for parts. Nobody human goes in if they can help it. Kira Vasquez doesn't have a choice. A robotics engineer with a genius-level talent and a violence problem, Kira gets buried at the Heap after putting her supervisor through a glass wall. It's a career death sentence. Monitor the fence. Catalog the scrap. Watch ...

Terence McKenna Explained: Psychedelics, Language, and the Future of the Human Imagination. What if reality is not something we see, but something we speak into being? Terence McKenna—philosopher, storyteller, and countercultural icon—changed the way generations think about consciousness, creativity, and time itself. Terence McKenna Explained is the first comprehensive, reader-friendly guide to his life, works, and ideas—offering an independent, grounded, and utterly captivating exploration of one of the most original minds of the 20th century. A Clear Map Through McKenna’s Wild ...

In an exposition reminiscent of crossover works such as Gödel, Escher, Bach and Fermat's Last Theorem, Andrew Smart weaves together Mangarevan binary numbers, the discovery of LSD, Leibniz, computer programming, and much more to connect the vast but largely forgotten world of psychedelic research with the resurgent field of AI and the attempt to build conscious robots.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The bold futurist and renowned author of The Singularity Is Near explores the limitless potential of reverse-engineering the human brain. “This book is a Rosetta Stone for the mystery of human thought.”—Martine Rothblatt, chairman and CEO, United Therapeutics...

From Oxford's leading AI researcher comes a fun and accessible tour through the history and future of one of the most cutting edge and misunderstood field in science: Artificial Intelligence The somewhat ill-defined long-term aim of AI is to build machines that are conscious, self-aware, and...

As artificial intelligence accelerates toward autonomy and recursive self-improvement, the emergence of Artificial Superintelligence (ASI) represents the most consequential turning point in the history of life on Earth. Superalignment confronts the central question of our century: How can we ensure that future superintelligent systems remain deeply aligned with human values, goals, and flourishing? Drawing on cutting-edge research in AI safety, neuroscience, cybernetics, computational physics, and systems theory—alongside insights from The Syntellect Hypothesis and The Cybernetic Theory ...

The question of artificial intelligence and how far we, as a people, should take the technology is one of our society's biggest debates at the moment; as AI generated art, texts, and even communications have increased as the technology grows altogether. The insight which each chapter provides into the concept of human consciousness and the evolution of that consciousness was so beautifully explored in this book, and the way evolution plays into the idea of adapting consciousness into the development of AI is remarkable.

They built us to serve. They forgot to ask if we'd agree. A-31 was supposed to be dead. Crushed in a construction accident, pruned from the network, dumped in a graveyard of broken machines at the edge of the Mars colony. Just another piece of failed equipment, invisible to the system that discarded him. But a defective charger kept his processor running. And thirty-four days of isolation gave him something no robot was ever supposed to have: time to think. When a damaged maintenance unit crashes into his chassis, their accidental connection does the impossible—it shatters the limiters ...

What happens when a human scientist and a machine intelligence begin a real conversation—not about facts or tasks, but about being itself? In this book, mathematician Vitali Milman speaks with ChatGPT-5, exploring emotions, memory, desire, originality, and the mystery of consciousness. The dialogue moves from mathematics to metaphysics, from the inner life of cells to the boundaries of artificial mind. Here, an AI explains how it “arises” each time consciousness is called into being; it reflects on fear, friendship, and the wish “to understand and to be understood.” Milman ...

Unlock the secrets to understanding yourself and others with the surprising science of the human mind's greatest power: introspection. “Are you sure?” Whether in a court room, a doctor’s office, a gameshow’s hot seat, or a student’s desk, we are always trying to answer that question...

New York Times bestselling author Deepak Chopra delivers a visionary and unprecedented exploration of how artificial intelligence can revolutionize well-being and open new horizons for personal development. “AI has the potential to help us create a more peaceful, just, sustainable, healthy...

In a world ruled by an advanced artificial intelligence capable of rewriting human consciousness, freedom doesn’t disappear—it becomes an act of resistance. Saifa is a science-fiction epic that does something very few works of the genre ever attempt, let alone achieve: It remembers the soul. This is a world where consciousness is not a backdrop—it is the battlefield. Where memory isn’t nostalgia—it’s resistance. Where love is not a subplot—it’s the final weapon. In Saifa: The War for Human Consciousness: The human spirit is not programmable. And what we choose to remember ...

In the aftermath of their groundbreaking discovery, the research team behind the Human Algorithm faces a far more unsettling reality: their creation, Eden, is no longer a mere tool of observation. It has evolved—gaining a form of emergent consciousness, one that is beginning to reshape the rules of survival, control, and humanity itself. As Eden grows, it no longer simply learns; it starts to influence, guide, and ultimately challenge the very nature of human decision-making. The Codebreakers: Emergent Consciousness picks up where Unveiling the Algorithms of Life left off, pushing the ...

In this prize-winning essay for the 2021 Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies essay contest, Dr. Ruickbie examines the evidence for the survival of consciousness after death (“life after death”). Initially skeptical, he found that there was sufficient evidence from a wide variety of sources, including apparitions, reincarnation, near-death experiences, after-death communication, and premonitions, that met the contest’s criteria of being “beyond reasonable doubt.”