Only What Is Alive Can Be Conscious

47% of AI researchers believe artificial intelligence will achieve consciousness by 2050. But Anil Seth, one of Britain's most prominent neuroscientists, thinks they're fundamentally wrong.

Seth, professor of cognitive and computational neuroscience at the University of Sussex, just won the 2025 Berggruen Essay Prize for his piece "The Mythology of Conscious AI." His argument cuts straight to the heart of Silicon Valley's biggest dream: that complex computation can give rise to consciousness. Seth's verdict? Not a chance.

His core thesis is deceptively simple yet revolutionary: consciousness isn't just tied to biological life—it's inseparable from it.

The Trap of Wrong Metaphors

Why do so many brilliant minds believe AI can become conscious? Seth identifies three "baked-in psychological biases" that cloud our thinking.

First is anthropocentrism—seeing everything through the lens of being human, taking our example as definitional rather than just one possibility. Second is human exceptionalism, our habit of placing humans at the top of every hierarchy. Third is anthropomorphism, projecting human-like qualities onto non-human things based on superficial similarities.

Once we escape these metaphorical traps, the fundamental differences between algorithmic intelligence and biological consciousness become crystal clear.

The Wetware Revolution

Inside a brain, Seth explains, "there's no sharp separation between 'mindware' and 'wetware' as there is between software and hardware in a computer." The deeper you dive into biological brains, the more you realize how rich and dynamic they are compared to "the dead sand of silicon."

Brain activity evolves across multiple scales—from large cortical territories down to neurotransmitters and neural circuits, all interwoven with what Seth calls "a molecular storm of metabolic activity." Even a single neuron is a spectacularly complicated biological machine, constantly maintaining its integrity through autopoiesis—literally "self-production."

This isn't just technical complexity. It's a fundamentally different kind of system where you can't separate what something does from what it is. Google's engineers might dream of consciousness emerging from their data centers, but they're missing the point entirely.

Biological Time vs. Digital Time

Here's where Seth's argument gets really interesting. In computational processing, only sequence matters: A to B, 0 to 1. There could be a microsecond or a million years between state transitions—it's still the same algorithm.

But biological systems exist in physical, continuous, inescapable time. Living systems must constantly resist the decay mandated by thermodynamics' second law. Consciousness doesn't stutter from state to state; it flows.

This temporal anchoring isn't a bug—it's a feature. It's what allows consciousness to emerge from the imperative of living organisms to perceive where they are in the world and select behaviors that favor survival.

What This Means for Tech Giants

Seth's argument has massive implications for companies betting big on conscious AI. OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and others are pouring billions into systems they hope will eventually "wake up." But if Seth is right, they're chasing a mirage.

This doesn't mean AI won't be transformative—just not in the way many expect. Instead of conscious machines, we might get incredibly sophisticated tools that complement biological intelligence rather than replace it.

The investment implications are staggering. If consciousness requires biology, then the path to artificial general intelligence might look completely different from current approaches.

The Breath of Life

Seth's conclusion is both humbling and profound: "We experience the world around us and ourselves within it—with, through and because of our living bodies. Perhaps it is life, rather than information processing, that breathes fire into the equations of experience."

If we conflate biological brains with "deepfake-boosted chatbots," we do ourselves "a grave injustice." We overestimate our machines and underestimate ourselves.

What makes us uniquely us, Seth suggests, might trace back to ancient wisdom—"more breath than thought and more meat than machine."