Prof. Anil Seth TED Talk: Can AI be conscious?
By: Aleks Kossowska
Last updated: Tuesday, 5 May 2026
Anil Seth’s first TED talk, from 2017, has been seen more than 15 million times, In his new TED talk, delivered on the main TED stage in Vancouver last month, Anil addressed one of the most important questions of our time: Can AI be conscious? Many people, including many experts, believe that conscious AI is either coming soon or already here. Anil challenges this idea, making a case that conscious AI is very unlikely - and also a really bad idea. As he says: "When we sell our minds too easily to our machine creations, we not only overestimate them - we underestimate ourselves.”
Video: Anil Seth: Why AI is unlikely to become conscious | TED Talk