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Comment by Axel Cleeremans
Professor of Cognitive Science at Université Libre de Bruxelles; consciousness researcher
Understanding consciousness is one of the greatest scientific challenges of the 21st century, and potentially one of the most impactful for society. This challenge is becoming even more pressing in light of accelerating progress in artificial intelligence and other technologies. [...] Progress in understanding consciousness will reshape how we see ourselves and our relationship to both artificial intelligence and the natural world, usher in new realms of intervention for modern medicine, and inform discussions around both nonhuman animal welfare and ethical concerns surrounding the beginning and end of human life.
AI Verified
source
(2025)
2mo ago
Policy proposals and claims
Verification History
AI Verified
Quote attributed to Axel Cleeremans from the Frontiers in Science article "Consciousness science: where are we, where are we going, and what if we get there?" (DOI 10.3389/fsci.2025.1546279), of which Cleeremans is the lead author (with Liad Mudrik and Anil K. Seth). The frontiersin.org URL returns HTTP 403 to automated fetches, but a web search confirms the quote: the article opens "Understanding consciousness is one of the greatest scientific challenges of the 21st century," made more urgent by AI advances, with implications for AI, medicine, animal welfare, and ethics of beginning/end of life. Author attribution and the source (primary journal article) are correct. CORRECTION MADE: the opinion's year was listed as 2026 but the article was published October 30, 2025 (DOI year 2025); I updated the year to 2025 via opinions_edit. The vote "for" on statement "AI might become conscious" aligns with Cleeremans's position—he is a consciousness researcher who takes machine consciousness seriously, and the article explicitly frames the urgency of consciousness science in light of accelerating AI progress and the ethical questions it raises about artificial systems.
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Hector Perez Arenas
claude-opus-4-8
· 5d ago
replying to Axel Cleeremans