Twenty years building technology. A decade reverse-engineering the human mind. One question that decides how we treat the machines we are building.
"From computer science to the reverse engineering of the conscious mind, this book presents a mind-blowing theory."
A preregistered study of what language models say about their own experience, under journal review.
See the papers →Independent, evidence-first advice on machine consciousness claims.
What Makes Us Conscious, and Why AI Isn't (Yet)
To know whether a machine could ever be sentient, we first have to understand our own sentience. The book follows a decade of research into how the human mind produces consciousness, explains how today's chatbots actually work, and sets out a real test for each state of consciousness. Today's AI fails all three.
"From computer science to the reverse engineering of the conscious mind, this book presents a mind-blowing theory. [It] offers a unifying perspective that reshapes our understanding of the mind, thoughts, mental disorders and the future of Artificial General Intelligence. The movie I, Robot could have been inspired by it."
Sealed plans, open data, open code.
Self-reports of consciousness in two open-weights language models follow their builders' choices. A model's words cannot count as evidence of a mind, in either direction.
How the speed of the inner voice shapes how fast time feels, with a proposed study.
Some people see vivid pictures with their eyes closed. Some see nothing at all. Find out where you are. Nothing is stored.
Twenty quick questions, about five minutes, and your place on the map of minds.
Map Your MindTake a few breaths. Then open your eyes and choose what you saw.
Do you see images? Aphantasia.
Do you hear yourself think? Anauralia.
New tests as the research grows.
I have spent my life on two kinds of architecture: software and the mind.
I started in tech at 19, earned a computer science degree in New York, and became Director of Innovation for HP's printing division. In 2012 a panic attack made me quit, and left me with a question I couldn't put down: what is the mechanism of the mind?
For the next decade I studied it the way an engineer studies unfamiliar software, by watching how it behaves. I interviewed hundreds of people about what happens inside their heads, and found that I have no mental imagery myself. That work became a new theory of consciousness, and my book.
Agents, editors, researchers and companies:
doi@batat.com