Susan Schneider
Center for the Future Mind, Florida Atlantic University
Critic Current evidence and current methods do not support the claims being made
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 and 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 and Event Talks
- Consciousness Science 2026 San Diego Confirmed Speaker Lineup for October July 2026
- Consciousness Science 2026 Comes to San Diego as the TSC Successor Event July 2026
Related researchers
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Michael LevinAllen Discovery Center, Tufts UniversityBioelectric signalling, the cognitive light cone, and diverse intelligence
- Terrence J. SejnowskiComputational Neurobiology Laboratory, Salk Institute / UC San DiegoCo-inventor of the Boltzmann Machine, The Computational Brain (1992), Independent Component Analysis (ICA), The Deep Learning Revolution (MIT Press, 2018)
- Alysson R. MuotriDepartment of Pediatrics and Cellular & Molecular Medicine, UC San DiegoHuman brain organoids ('mini-brains'), spontaneous complex neural oscillations, electrophysiological development in in-vitro neural networks
- Sir Roger PenroseMathematical Institute, University of OxfordNobel Prize in Physics (2020), Orchestrated Objective Reduction (Orch-OR) with Stuart Hameroff, The Emperor's New Mind (1989), Shadows of the Mind (1994)
- Stuart HameroffCenter for Consciousness Studies, University of ArizonaOrchestrated Objective Reduction (Orch-OR) with Roger Penrose, microtubule quantum resonance, anesthetic mechanisms of consciousness
- Hartmut NevenGoogle Quantum AILeading Google Quantum AI, quantum error correction, quantum approaches to consciousness
Susan Schneider is listed with the other critics and skeptics, who hold that current evidence and current methods do not support the claims being made. The positions themselves are set out in the index of consciousness theories. Every researcher covered on this site is indexed in the directory of consciousness researchers.