Functionalist AI Consciousness Researchers

Functionalists hold that what generates experience is the pattern of information processing, not the material carrying it out. David Chalmers named the hard problem of consciousness while defending exactly this framing, and Joscha Bach’s machine consciousness hypothesis treats the mind as a self organising software process that can in principle run on any suitable substrate. Karl Friston’s free energy principle and Stanislas Dehaene’s global neuronal workspace theory both cash the same commitment out into testable architecture, an inference loop or an ignition signature, rather than a specific tissue. Manuel Blum and Lenore Blum push the position furthest with the Conscious Turing Machine, a formal architecture built entirely from theoretical computer science.

Under this position, an artificial system built from the right components, organised the right way, counts as conscious in the same sense a biological brain does. It is the largest group tracked on this site, spanning theoretical computer science, active inference, higher order thought theory and global workspace research. For the theories these researchers work within, see the consciousness theories index; for the full researcher directory, see all consciousness researchers.

• Blaise Agüera y Arcas Computational functionalism, active inference, on-device neural computing, What Is Intelligence? (2025), and Who Are We Now? (2023)
• Matt Angle Founder and CEO of Paradromics, developer of the Connexus Direct Data Interface high-data-rate brain-computer interface
• Joscha Bach The machine consciousness hypothesis, cyber animism, and MicroPsi
• Max Bennett The Five Breakthroughs evolutionary neuroscience framework and A Brief History of Intelligence (2023)
• Michael Timothy Bennett Mathematical foundations of emergent causality, valence-driven self-organization, and 'Why Is Anything Conscious?'
• Lenore Blum Conscious Turing Machine (CTM) formal architecture (with Manuel Blum), Blum-Shub-Smale (BSS) model of real computation, theoretical computer science
• Manuel Blum Turing Award Laureate (1995), Conscious Turing Machine (CTM) formal architecture, Blum axioms of computational complexity, cryptography pioneer
• Nick Bostrom Superintelligence (2014), the Simulation Argument (2003), and co-authoring Whole Brain Emulation: A Roadmap (2008)
• Peter Carruthers Dispositionalist higher-order thought theory of consciousness
• David Chalmers Naming the hard problem of consciousness, and the philosophical zombie argument
• Axel Cleeremans Radical Plasticity Thesis of Consciousness, The Computational Self, metarepresentation learning, Implicit Learning
• Andrew W. Corcoran Adversarial evaluation of Integrated Information Theory vs. Predictive Processing, computational phenomenology, hierarchical active inference
• David 'davidad' Dalrymple Open Agency Architecture (OAA), formal verification of autonomous systems, machine consciousness ethics, successor species safety protocols
• Mike Davies Directing Intel's Neuromorphic Computing Lab and co-developing the Loihi and Loihi 2 neuromorphic research processors
• Stanislas Dehaene Global neuronal workspace theory, and the ignition signature of conscious access
• Andreas K. Engel Temporal binding and the neural correlates of sensory awareness, co-author of the landmark 2001 Trends in Cognitive Sciences review with Wolf Singer
• Stephen M. Fleming Metacognition research and the sensory horizons account of conscious vision
• Karl Friston The free energy principle and active inference
• Rocco J. Gennaro Higher-order thought theory and its self-representational variants
• Michael Graziano Attention schema theory
• Jeremiah Hendren Structural modeling of phenomenal experience within Integrated Information Theory
• Douglas Hofstadter Gödel, Escher, Bach, An Eternal Golden Braid (Pulitzer Prize 1979), Strange Loops, I Am a Strange Loop (2007), fluid analogies, analogical cognition
• Eugene M. Izhikevich The Izhikevich simple spiking neuron model, polychronization, large-scale cortical simulations, and Dynamical Systems in Neuroscience (2007)
• Hakwan Lau Perceptual Reality Monitoring, Higher-Order Neuroscientific Theories of Consciousness, In Consciousness We Trust (Oxford University Press, 2022)
• Michael Levin Bioelectric signalling, the cognitive light cone, and diverse intelligence
• Thomas Metzinger The self model theory of subjectivity, phenomenal transparency, and a proposed moratorium on synthetic phenomenology
• Matthias Michel Philosophy of perception and co-author of the sensory horizons account of conscious vision
• Hans Moravec The Moravec transfer thought experiment, Moravec's paradox in robotics, author of Mind Children (1988)
• Marcus S. Murbach Principal Investigator of the TechEdSat satellite series, pioneering the first orbital flight of a neuromorphic processor (TechEdSat-13 / Loihi 1)
• Benjamin Rapoport Co-founder of Precision Neuroscience, founding member of Neuralink, and pioneer of conformable micro-electrocorticography (Layer 7 Cortical Interface)
• David M. Rosenthal Higher-Order Thought (HOT) actualist theory of consciousness, Consciousness and Mind (Oxford University Press, 2005), intransitive vs. transitive consciousness
• Adam Safron Integrated World Modeling Theory (IWMT), Active Inference and Free Energy Principle integration with GWT and IIT, generative embodied models
• Anders Sandberg Co-author of Whole Brain Emulation: A Roadmap (2008) with Nick Bostrom, computational neuroscience, and technological futures
• Terrence J. Sejnowski Co-inventor of the Boltzmann Machine, The Computational Brain (1992), Independent Component Analysis (ICA), The Deep Learning Revolution (MIT Press, 2018)
• Wolf Singer The temporal binding hypothesis, gamma-band synchrony as the mechanism for conscious feature integration
• Hikari Sorensen Genesis Theory of Machine Consciousness, synthetic agency requirements, causal insulation, CIMC Machine Consciousness Salon series (2026)
• Andy Weir Author of The Martian (2011), Artemis (2017), and Project Hail Mary (2021)

This list grows as new articles are published and name researchers who meet the site’s inclusion criteria. This project itself works under functionalist emergentism, described on the functionalist emergentism page.