Editor’s pick All Interviews

Could Machines Be Conscious? A Conversation with Dr Tom McClelland on Minds, Machines and the Hard Problem of Consciousness

Cambridge philosopher Dr Tom McClelland argues we should be agnostic about AI consciousness. He explains why language models have broken humanity’s tools for detecting minds, why our judgments about machine minds are motivated, whether AI can…

Dr. Vikas Shah MBE DL 26 min read

Read the interview

Latest interviews

Browse the archive →

Voices in the archive

Notable interviewees

See all interviewees

Entrepreneurs

Artists, Creatives, Sports & Entertainers

Thinkers

Nobel Prize Winners

World Leaders

From the archive

Three thousand moments. Three picked at random.

“Too often I feel there is also a search for 'the next' Steve Jobs or Joanna Shields. These are extraordinary people and yet I believe we should not treat entrepreneurialism as requiring a narrow checklist of certain characteristics.”
— Matthew W. Barzun U.S. Ambassador to Sweden, France, and the United Kingdom
“It's amusing when you ask people, well name someone who became rich as a hedge fund client?”
— Simon Lack
“Work is not the be-all and end-all for me. It never has been. My family is the most important thing to me, and I talk a lot about that to my employees. It actually makes you a better employee if you have your balance right between work, family, passions, studies, all those things.”
— Christopher Payne

Browse all 3,000+ quotes

The Wisdom Series

Ten essays. Distilled from 600+ conversations.

Insights, themes and patterns from years of long-form interviews — organised around the questions that matter most.

Explore the Wisdom Series

Browse the archive

By topic

All topics
  1. 01 Business & Economics A Conversation with Victor Vescovo: On Exploration, Risk and the Limits of Human Experience 360 interviews
  2. 02 Culture, Society, Sports & Arts A Conversation with Victor Vescovo: On Exploration, Risk and the Limits of Human Experience 234 interviews
  3. 03 Politics & Policy Incorruptible: Eric Ries on Why Good Companies Go Bad — and How to Build Ones That Don’t 167 interviews
  4. 04 Science & Technology Could Machines Be Conscious? A Conversation with Dr Tom McClelland on Minds, Machines and the Hard Problem of Consciousness 135 interviews
  5. 05 Health & Medicine The Continuum of Mind: A Conversation with Professor Michael Levin on Cognition, Bioelectricity and the Future of Being 74 interviews
  6. 06 Nobel Laureates Markets, Morals and the Road Ahead: A Conversation with Nobel Laureate Professor Alvin Roth 21 interviews

Stay with the ideas

A monthly letter from Thought Economics.

Long-form conversations with world-leading thinkers, delivered to your inbox. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.