Susan Schneider
Susan Schneider is the William F. Dietrich Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for the Future Mind at Florida Atlantic University. She previously held the NASA-Baruch Blumberg Chair in Astrobiology, Exploration, and Scientific Innovation at the Library of Congress and served as Director of the Mind and Culture Center at Princeton University.
In Artificial You, AI and the Future of Your Mind (Princeton University Press, 2019), Schneider explores the philosophical, ethical, and existential implications of synthetic intelligence, whole-brain emulation, and mind uploading. She developed the Artificial Consciousness Test (ACT), a non-behavioral evaluation protocol designed to test whether an AI system can conceptualize philosophical problems of consciousness, personal identity, and qualia without being exposed to prior training data on consciousness literature.
Schneider cautions against assuming that intelligence and consciousness automatically co-occur in computational architectures, emphasizing that artificial general intelligence could operate as superintelligent non-conscious “zombies,” presenting critical ethical questions regarding synthetic agency and moral patienthood.
Known for. Artificial Consciousness Tests (ACT), Artificial You, AI and the Future of Your Mind (Princeton, 2019), AI safety & cognitive rights, NASA-Baruch Blumberg Chair at Library of Congress
Coverage on this site
Research Papers & Preprints
- Susan Schneider Alien Minds AI Consciousness and the Verification Problem CS26 2026 August 2026
- Schwitzgebel's Weirdness Argument and What It Means for AI Consciousness Attribution July 2026
Keynotes & Event Talks
Elsewhere
Every researcher covered on this site is indexed in the directory of consciousness researchers, grouped by the position their published work defends. The positions themselves are set out in the index of consciousness theories.