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Stuart Hameroff

Distinguished Senior Fellow in Quantum Consciousness

David Sahner

Distinguished Senior Fellow in AI Consciousness

Gabriel Axel-Montes

Distinguished Senior Fellow in Cognitive Security

Juan Alas

Doctoral Student in Neuroscience

Steven Cohen

Undergraduate Researcher

Andrew Goldbaum

Doctoral Student in Neuroscience

MindFest 2025 | Closer To Truth

MindFest is an annual conference that brings together leading thinkers, researchers, and academics to explore pressing philosophical and scientific questions. Our third and most recent installment, MindFest 2025, aimed to identify key trajectories for the future of human–AI interaction.

To extend these conversations worldwide, we partnered with the PBS series Closer To Truth, which produced and curated a dedicated playlist of exclusive interviews with MindFest 2025 keynote speakers.

In parallel, we released our own YouTube playlist featuring full keynote talks and additional MindFest presentations.



Watch the interviews. Explore the talks. Join the conversation.

Beyond the Threshold: PRISM Workshop (2025)

In November, the Center co-organized a dynamic policy workshop on AI consciousness in London with the Partnership for Research Into Sentient Machines (PRISM).

The workshop brought together policymakers, ethicists, and scientists to examine the growing controversy surrounding the prospect of consciousness in large language models. Designed as an exploratory session, the gathering encouraged open exchange, interdisciplinary perspectives, and collaborative thinking around one of the most profound and challenging questions emerging at the frontier of AI and society.

We are grateful to PRISM for their leadership and partnership in convening this timely and thoughtful dialogue.

The Great AI Weirding Workshop (2026)

This January, the Center hosted "The Great AI Weirding," an interdisciplinary workshop exploring some of the most profound questions at the frontiers of science, philosophy, and emerging technology.

Across conversations on quantum mechanics and life, xenobiology, non-human intelligence, and the nature of both natural and artificial minds, participants engaged in sustained, curious, and genuinely collaborative inquiry. The workshop created a space for bold ideas, intellectual risk-taking, and new research directions that cross traditional disciplinary boundaries.

We were honored to learn from and think alongside an extraordinary group of speakers, including Ben Goertzel, Stuart Hameroff, Gabriel Axel Montes, Anirban Bandyopadhyay, William Hahn, and many others.

Our Center is deeply grateful to everyone who contributed their insight, curiosity, and commitment to advancing thoughtful, responsible inquiry into the future of intelligence.

At MindFest and other events, the Center brings together world-class scholars, innovators, and thought leaders, made possible by your support. We offer a range of sponsorship packages tailored to highlight your organization’s impact while connecting you with a global audience.

Join us in shaping the conversation at our forthcoming events on AI, mind, and society.

In light of the Center's activities, we released a policy/clarificatory paper coauthored by Robert Lawrence Kuhn, Mark Bailey, Eric Schwitzgebel, and David Sahner.

The Center is a collaboration between the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters and the Stiles-Nicholson Brain Institute