WILL AI ROBOTS BE SENTIENT? & THE QUANTUM FOUNDATIONS OF CONSCIOUSNESS - Suzanne Gildert PhD #82 @ChasingConsciousnessPodcast

Uploaded October 2025 | Updated September 2026, 6 hours ago

Will artificial intelligence robots have subjective experience? What are the ethical and safety implications of such entities? Which quantum physics theory can accommodate consciousness?

In this episode we have the extraordinary possibility of subjective experience and feelings in artificial intelligence robotic systems to think about. So we look at experiments to try and prove if it’s even possible; the quantum building blocks from which both living and artificial systems are made up; the ethical and safety implications of advanced intelligence instantiated in robots, and we get into the controversial search for a quantum physics theory that can accommodate consciousness.

Fortunately, my guest today is not only one of the first pioneering scientists to really devote themselves to the creation of sentient human-similar robot minds and bodies, but is also an experimental physicist working with quantum computing systems. She is of course the quantum engineer, consciousness researcher and AI computer scientist Suzanne Gildert. She has written over 80 scientific papers, founded several successful AI companies and has dozens of US patents for her inventions.

What we discuss:
00:00 Intro.
04:25 Her move to AI & robotics from quantum computing.
06:45 Something missing from materialism.
11:00 The what, how and why of consciousness.
12:20 Remembering quantum fields are the base level of reality.
15:50 Quantum Biology - John Joe McFadden.
18:20 ‘Protecting’ quantum coherence environments.
20:00 The Penrose-Hameroff microtubules quantum consciousness theory.
24:40 The risks of the “two mysteries” argument.
30:10 Looking for subjective experience in AI robots.
33:55 “Reward function”, purpose led, agential behaviour doesn’t emerge naturally in AI.
36:25 Limitations to building sentient AI robots.
39:25 Iain McGilchrist’s left-right hemisphere interpretation of split brain data.
41:40 How similar are AI minds to human ones?
43:40 Will Ai become conscious one day?
44:40 The generalisation problem.
47:50 The anthropomorphism problem.
50:05 Ethical implications - Regulations, rights and protections.
53:20 Survival instinct research in AI.
57:20 Brain activity mapping to subjective experience, AI decoder research.
50:20 Biological robots: Different emergent possibilities?
01:01:50 Cellular material re-purposing itself spontaneously.
01:04:10 Could the biosphere be a technology?
01:07:40 Quantum Conscious Agency Theory.
01:14:05 Quantum Annealing.
01:21:03 Can you test for panpsychism?
01:25:10 Buddhism: the dissociated agent approach.

References:
SuzanneGildert.com
suzannegildert.com/patents-publications
Quantum Conscious Agent theory - Suzanne Gildert.
youtube.com/watch?v=ghCpxh7kK3k
Jeff Hawkins, Sandra Blakeslee “On Intelligence“.
amazon.com/Intelligence-Jeff-Hawkins/dp/0805074562
John Joe Mcfadden, CC Quantum Biology episode
chasingconsciousness.net/episode-35-johnjoe-mcfadden-quantum-biology
Roger Penrose, Orch OR (Orchestrated objective reduction) theory.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestrated_objective_reduction
Erwin Shrodinger, “What is Life?”.
https://share.google/bsY8Wzayv80Q65z4S
‘In Tests, Open AI’s New Model Lied and Schemed to Avoid Being Shut Down’ article
futurism.com/the-byte/openai-o1-self-preservation
‘Brain activity decoder can reveal stories in people’s minds’ article
eurekalert.org/news-releases/987750
Jerry Tang et al. ‘Semantic reconstruction of continuous language from non-invasive brain recordings’
nature.com/articles/s41593-023-01304-9
“The AI Dilemma” presentation, Tristan Harris & Aza Raskin, March 2023
youtube.com/watch?v=xoVJKj8lcNQ

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$COMPLEXITY THEORY & SELF ORGANISING SYSTEMS - Dr. Neil Theise #55 Why do complex systems self-organise? What is cellular uncertainty and stem cell plasticity? Can we create artificial digital life that’s subject to the same creative adaptability that nature and life demonstrate? Today we have the extraordinary phenomena of self-organisation in Complex Systems to look into. We’re going to be looking into the conditions for a system to be considered complex, how a certain amount of randomness in the system releases the creativity required to permit adaptability, and how the feedback loops within that adaptability lead to a self-correcting organisational principle that keeps the system’s order and randomness in balance as it evolves. We’re going to be seeing how that self-organisation is operative at almost every level of scale in the universe and in life and death, and trying to get our heads around what that means for the nature of reality and consciousness. So who better to discuss this with than stem cell biologist and diagnostic pathologist Neil Theise. Neil is is a professor of pathology at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine and a pioneer of adult stem cell plasticity research. In 2018 the news of his discovery of the interstitial, a vast communication network throughout the human body went viral and was featured in the New York Times and Scientific American among many others. Theise is also a long term student of Zen meditation and Kabbalah. And his studies of complexity theory, summarised in his new book “Notes on Complexity: A scientific theory of connection, consciousness and being”, have led to interdisciplinary collaborations in fields as diverse integrative medicine, consciousness studies and the science-spirituality interface. Since speaking with biologist Michael Levin on Cellular cognition, and cognitive scientist John Vervaeke on collective intelligence, in the last series; I’ve been keen to speak to Neil about stem cell plasticity and self-organising systems, as their elegant sophistication begs so many questions about the nature of reality and consciousness. So without further ado, let’s go! 00:00 Intro 05:45 Livers have stem cells, Neil’s first discovery 08:10 The Canals of Hering - Liver-Bile ducts, Neil’s next discovery. 11:20 Diane Krause collaboration - Bone marrow stem cell migration discovery. 13:50 “Cellular Uncertainty” - Stem-cell plasticity. 16:00 Bio-electricity, cellular intelligence and cell programmability. 17:43 The experimenter effect influencing cell plasticity - Heisenberg’s ‘Uncertainty principle’ analogy. 19:20 It’s impossible to interact with a cell and not change it. 20:20 Cellular sensitivity and ‘entanglement’ between all living cells. 32:00 The TechnoSphere - interacting with virtual creatures: British artist Jane Prophet. 26:20 Emergent bottom-up structure, self-organising inside the game, not previously programmed. 27:20 Artificial Life. 29:20 Complexity Theory explained by Ants. 34:20 Randomness allows the creativity to adapt to changes: in the environment Divergent ants. 35:20 A minimum of elements are needed over time to become self-organising. 38:40 No planning or top-down intelligence managing complex systems. 42:55 ‘Wholarchies’ not hierarchies. 47:50 Living systems and complexity arise at the boundary between perfect order and fractal chaos. 49:55 Extinction is also part of complexity, as much as creative adaptivity. 50:30 “What makes you able to be a living system, inevitably, given enough time will lead you to die. You can’t separate life and death”. 53:10 Self correction: Negativity Feedback loops VS positive feedback loops. 55:50 Cancer, economic crashes, extinction events 57:30 Every scale of nature adheres to complex system behaviours. 59:50 Complementarity exists at all levels of scale - Niels Bohr. 01:01:40 Biological complementarity. 01:04:50 Breaking down the separations between discrete organisms. 01:10:50 Not upward or downward causation but complementarity. 01:35:50 Zen meditation insights which led to scientific insight. 01:18:20 The risk of over-rating our personal experience. 01:23:20 Where you find mind, you find life. References: Neil Theise, “Notes on Complexity: A scientific theory of connection, consciousness and being” https://g.co/kgs/s2dX3mz The TechnoSphere https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TechnoSphere_(virtual_environment) Game of Life https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life The Quantum foam - John Wheeler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_foam Evan Thompson - Deep Continuity (of Life and Mind) https://philpapers.org/rec/THOPOM-8 Francisco Varela - (Evan Thompson’s mentor) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Varela Mind and Life Institute- Dali Lama and ‘Contemplative’ Science https://www.mindandlife.org/ Niels Bohr “Complementarity” Principle (in Physics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complementarity_(physics) Godel’s incompleteness theorems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_theorems$

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