Ned Block: AI & The Mystery of the Conscious Mind
- Date 19 May 2026 - 4.15 p.m. - 19 May 2026 - 6.30 p.m.
- Location Garden Quad Auditorium
If consciousness is biological, can AI be conscious? Does consciousness have a biological basis, and if so, does that preclude consciousness in AI? These questions are central to understanding whether we may eventually have moral obligations toward artificial systems.
Ned Block (PhD, Harvard) is Silver Professor of Philosophy, Psychology, and Neural Science at New York University. He joined NYU in 1996 from MIT, where he previously served as Chair of the Philosophy Program. His work focuses on perception, consciousness, and the foundations of cognitive science and neuroscience. He is currently completing a book on the boundary between perception and cognition, The Border between Seeing and Thinking.
He has received numerous honours, including fellowships from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Cognitive Science Society, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the National Science Foundation. He has also received the Jean Nicod Prize and the Robert A. Muh Alumni Award from MIT.
In addition, he has served as President of both the Society for Philosophy and Psychology and the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness. His work has been widely recognised, with several papers selected for The Philosophers’ Annual.