Require that any public policy or legal claim that hinges on assertions of consciousness (e.g., animal personhood, AI personhood, end‑of‑life capacity) be supported by a standardized 'robustness map' of empirical tests: preregistered protocols, cross‑species or device validation, negative controls, and openly archived data and code. Turn the study of consciousness into a reproducible, auditable pipeline so law and regulation stop defaulting to folk intuitions.
— Standardizing how 'consciousness' claims are evaluated would prevent policy from being driven by intuition or rhetoric and would create defensible bridges between neuroscience, law, and AI governance.
Kristen French
2026.01.14
92% relevant
The Nautilus piece argues that focused ultrasound enables causal perturbations needed to adjudicate consciousness claims; that directly maps to the existing idea of requiring high‑bar, auditable protocols for any public policy that depends on claims of consciousness (e.g., animal personhood, AI personhood, end‑of‑life practice). The article cites MIT researchers and a Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews paper laying out experimental designs—exactly the kind of evidence‑first, procedural roadmap the idea calls for.
Annaka Harris
2026.01.13
100% relevant
Annaka Harris’s interview urging that science stop deferring to intuition and treat consciousness like other hard, testable problems (quoted claim that intuitions can be illusions).
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