Joscha Bach

California Institute for Machine Consciousness

Functionalist What matters is the organisation of the processing, not the material

Joscha Bach Photograph by Joi Ito, CC BY 2.0.

Position on AI consciousness

Bach holds that a general computational machine with sufficient resources can implement consciousness, through self organised second order perception that raises global coherence. On his account the mind is a software process and the substrate is a detail.

Joscha Bach holds the strongest affirmative position among researchers actively building systems. On his account the mind is a software process that the brain runs, consciousness is a self organising pattern that models its own coherence, and the substrate is a detail. His machine consciousness hypothesis states it directly: a general computational machine with sufficient resources can implement consciousness through self organised second order perception that raises global coherence.

His cognitive architecture work, from MicroPsi onward, treats motivation as central rather than as a module bolted onto reasoning. That places him closer to the affective tradition than most computationalists, and it distinguishes his position from the view that scaling a predictor eventually produces a mind.

He leads vision and direction at the California Institute for Machine Consciousness. That institute studies consciousness in computational machines, which is a narrower project than this one. The Consciousness AI treats consciousness as an emergent property of the universe, substrate independent, and therefore including animals. The overlap is method rather than scope, and the distinction is worth keeping clear when the two are compared.

Known for. The machine consciousness hypothesis, cyber animism, and MicroPsi

Coverage on this site

Research Papers and Preprints

Keynotes and Event Talks

Articles and Commentary

The Machine Consciousness Hypothesis Cyberanimism and the Software of the Mind January 2026

Related researchers

Joscha Bach is listed with the other functionalists and computationalists, who hold that what matters is the organisation of the processing, not the material. The theory family behind that position is set out in the index of consciousness theories. Every researcher covered on this site is indexed in the directory of consciousness researchers.