Yoshua Bengio
Mila, Université de Montréal
Integrated information Consciousness is intrinsic causal power, measured as integrated information
Yoshua Bengio is a Turing Award winning deep learning researcher at Mila and the Université de Montréal, and the most decorated AI scientist to treat consciousness as an engineering target. His 2017 paper “The Consciousness Prior” (arXiv:1709.08568) defines conscious states as low-dimensional representations that are selected through attention over the full state of a learning agent, and shaped by a training objective that makes them useful for predicting the near future and for acting. The formulation is deliberately global-workspace-shaped, restating Bernard Baars’s architecture as a training objective.
Bengio carried the commitment into the field’s main AI consciousness assessment. He is a co-author of the Butlin and Long indicator-properties report, examined on this site in the nineteen researcher checklist, and his stated position there is that no current system is conscious while no obvious technical barrier prevents systems that satisfy the indicators. He has paired that assessment with public warnings that building conscious AI would raise moral risks that the field is not prepared for.
The significance for this site’s subject is straightforward. The Consciousness Prior is the point where the measurement vocabulary of consciousness science, workspace, attention, broadcast, enters mainstream representation learning, and Bengio’s authority made that entry unavoidable.
Known for. The Consciousness Prior, deep learning foundations, Turing Award, global workspace-inspired representation learning
Coverage on this site
Related researchers
- Patrick ButlinEleos AI Research. Previously the Global Priorities Institute, OxfordLead author of the indicator properties framework for assessing consciousness in AI systems
- Robert LongEleos AI Research (Executive Director)AI welfare research, the 14 indicator framework for AI consciousness assessment, the Eleos Conference on AI Consciousness and Welfare
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David ChalmersNew York University. Co-director, Center for Mind, Brain and ConsciousnessNaming the hard problem of consciousness, and the philosophical zombie argument
- Karl FristonUniversity College London. Chief Scientist, VERSES AIThe free energy principle and active inference
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Jonathan BirchLondon School of Economics and Political ScienceThe Edge of Sentience, the LSE Criteria, and the run-ahead principle
- Murray ShanahanImperial College LondonGlobal workspace style cognitive architectures, Embodiment and the Inner Life, indicator properties for AI consciousness, LLM world models
Yoshua Bengio is listed with the other integrated information theorists, who hold that consciousness is intrinsic causal power, measured as integrated information. 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.