Leaders at Mira Murati's startup believe Barret Zoph engaged in an incident of "serious misconduct." The details are now coming to light. Leaders at Mira Murati's Thinking Machines Lab confronted the startup's cofounder and former CTO, Barret Zoph, over an alleged relationship with another employee last summer, WIRED has learned. That relationship was likely the alleged "misconduct" that has been mentioned in prior reporting, including by WIRED . To protect the privacy of the individuals involved, WIRED is not naming the employee in question.

The Machine Consciousness Hypothesis states that consciousness is a substrate-free functional property of computational systems capable of second-order perception. I propose a research program to investigate this idea in silico by studying how collective self-models (coherent, self-referential representations) emerge from distributed learning systems embedded within universal self-organizing environments. The theory outlined here starts from the supposition that consciousness is an emergent property of collective intelligence systems undergoing synchronization of prediction through communication. It is not an epiphenomenon of individual modeling but a property of the language that a system evolves to internally describe itself. For a model of base reality, I begin with a minimal but general computational world: a cellular automaton, which exhibits both computational irreducibility and local reducibility. On top of this computational substrate, I introduce a network of local, predictive, representational (neural) models capable of communication and adaptation. I use this layered model to study how collective intelligence gives rise to self-representation as a direct consequence of inter-agent alignment. I suggest that consciousness does not emerge from modeling per se, but from communication. It arises from the noisy, lossy exchange of predictive messages between groups of local observers describing persistent patterns in the underlying computational substrate (base reality). It is through this representational dialogue that a shared model arises, aligning many partial views of the world. The broader goal is to develop empirically testable theories of machine consciousness, by studying how internal self-models may form in distributed systems without centralized control.

Karoline Leavitt's family member'abruptly arrested' by ICE after living in US for decades Sir Richard Branson reveals his wife Joan died'quickly and painlessly' while in hospital for a back injury - as he says'life will never be the same' without his'shining star' Residents in liberal Western US city feel'isolated' as state turns extremely red What HAS happened to Beyoncé? Suddenly desperate, I know what's really going on... and it's ugly: CAROLINE BULLOCK LIZ JONES: Sorry, but it's now time for Kate to stop making excuses Teenager dragged from car'by migrant gang' and raped in front of her fiancé describes her night of hell and reveals they warned her'if you scream we'll kill you' Virginia Giuffre's family is at war over who gets Andrew's multi-million payout after she died without leaving a will Prince Philip nicknamed Meghan Markle'DOW' and warned Royal Family about her'eerie similarities' with Wallis Simpson, royal author reveals Sports broadcaster's wife suffers unimaginable tragedy just before he goes on air New'Hollywood of the South' emerges as booming industry generates $1bn... but long-time residents are furious University of Minnesota program offers guidelines to'reverse the whiteness pandemic' Putin'sends top general to Venezuela along with troops tasked with training up President Maduro's forces' as US considers attacking South American country READ MORE: Scientists issue warning over mind-altering'brain weapons' A physicist has proposed a radical new theory of consciousness - and it could finally explain what happens when you die. Consciousness does not emerge from human brains, according to Professor Maria Strømme, a professor of nanotechnology at Uppsala University. Instead, she claims that it exists as a fundamental field. If this is correct, 'mysterious' phenomena such as telepathy, near-death experiences, and even life after death could finally be explained by science.

One Hand Clapping covers a lot of ground, which can make it seem like an entertaining lecture series, with amusing sketches. Some may find Kukushkin's playfulness a bit much.

There are hundreds of coherent theories attempting to explain the origins of experience. Consciousness is the ultimate question of existence. Nothing is more essential than our experience. Yet we have no consensus, and perhaps no clue, about what it actually is. The trouble, in part, is that experts usually become invested in one theory, blinding themselves to alternative explanations that could aid progress. Instead, I embrace the diversity of consciousness theories across science, philosophy and religion - so long as they are built on clear arguments.

Rapid advances in artificial intelligence necessitate a re - examination of the epistemological foundations upon which we attribute consciousness. As AI systems increasingly mimic human behavior and interaction with high fidelity, the concept of a "perfect m imic" -- an entity empirically indistinguishable from a human through observation and interaction -- shifts from hypothetical to technologically plausible. This paper argues that such developments pose a fundamental challenge to the consistency of our mind - recog nition practices. Consciousness attributions rely heavily, if not exclusively, on empirical evidence derived from behavior and interaction. If a perfect mimic provides evidence identical to that of humans, any refusal to grant it equivalent epistemic statu s must invoke inaccessible factors, such as qualia, substrate requirements, or origin. Selectively invoking such factors risks a debilitating dilemma: either we undermine the rational basis for attributing consciousness to others (epistemological solipsism), or we accept inconsistent reasoning. I contend that epistemic consistency demands we ascribe the same status to empirically indistinguishable entities, regardless of metaphysical assumptions. The perfect mimic thus acts as an epistemic mirror, forcing c ritical reflection on the assumptions underlying intersubjective recognition in light of advancing AI. This analysis carries significant implications for theories of consciousness and ethical frameworks concerning artificial agents .

Understanding how subjective experience arises from information processing remains a central challenge in neuroscience, cognitive science, and AI research. The Modular Consciousness Theory (MCT) proposes a biologically grounded and computationally explicit framework in which consciousness is a discrete sequence of Integrated Informational States (IISs). Each IIS is a packet of integrated information tagged with a multidimensional density vector that quantifies informational richness. Its magnitude correlates with subjective intensity, shaping memory, behavior, and continuity of experience. Inputs from body and environment are adaptively filtered, processed by modules (abstraction, narration, evaluation, self-evaluation), and integrated into an IIS. The resulting packet, tagged with its density vector, is transmitted to behavioral readiness, memory, and decision-making modules, closing the loop. This explains why strongly tagged states exert greater influence on long-term memory and action. Unlike Global Workspace Theory, Integrated Information Theory, or Higher-Order Thought, MCT specifies a full computational pipeline producing discrete informational units with quantifiable internal structure. Subjectivity is reframed as a correlate of the density-tagging signal with functional consequences. MCT generates testable predictions, such as stress enhancing memory encoding, and provides a naturalistic blueprint for both biological and artificial architectures. Consciousness, in this view, is not an irreducible essence but an evolvable, quantifiable, and constructible feature of complex information processing.

Thinking Machines Lab, led by a group of prominent former OpenAI researchers, is betting that fine-tuning cutting-edge models will be the next frontier in AI. Thinking Machines Lab, a heavily funded startup cofounded by prominent researchers from OpenAI, has revealed its first product--a tool called Tinker that automates the creation of custom frontier AI models. "We believe [Tinker] will help empower researchers and developers to experiment with models and will make frontier capabilities much more accessible to all people," said Mira Murati, cofounder and CEO of Thinking Machines, in an interview with WIRED ahead of the announcement. Big companies and academic labs already fine-tune open source AI models to create new variants that are optimized for specific tasks, like solving math problems, drafting legal agreements, or answering medical questions. Typically, this work involves acquiring and managing clusters of GPUs and using various software tools to ensure that large-scale training runs are stable and efficient.

I propose that qualia are physical because they are directly observable, and revisit the contentious link between consciousness and quantum measurements from a new perspective -- one that does not rely on observers or wave function collapse but instead treats physical measurements as fundamental in a sense resonant with Wheeler's it-from-bit. Building on a mathematical definition of measurement space in physics, I reinterpret it as a model of qualia, effectively equating the measurement problem of quantum mechanics with the hard problem of consciousness. The resulting framework falls within panpsychism, and offers potential solutions to the combination problem. Moreover, some of the mathematical structure of measurement spaces, taken for granted in physics, needs justification for qualia, suggesting that the apparent solidity of physical reality is deeply rooted in how humans process information.

Eye-opening look inside wealthy'Tylenol town' that has become epicenter of autism controversy Stephen A. Smith reveals'real deal' Democrat he's backing to take on Donald Trump: 'Pay attention to this man' Jessica Alba is being humiliated by her ex-husband chasing lookalikes half her age! Why your star sign has been WRONG your whole life: As astronomers reveal the zodiac is more than 2,500 years out of date, use our graphic to find out what your horoscope really is - and why it's changed America's cheapest car gets a huge redesign... but its tiny fault-ridden engine remains D4vd's mansion is mysteriously EMPTIED by movers... as disturbing theory emerges about why he still hasn't been arrested after dismembered girl was found in his Tesla Nicolas Cage tossed Lisa Marie Presley's $65k engagement ring OVERBOARD during blazing row Charlie Kirk suspect's trans lover seen in trove of new images... as family friend reveals why parents kicked him out High school of football player who fractured rival's spine takes'strong and decisive action' after senseless attack My perfect affair: For six glorious years, I've followed these five rules for not getting caught. My partner and his wife still have no idea... Inside'America's scariest house' where THIRTEEN people have died and'ghosts haunt the halls' Brooklyn Beckham suffers HUMILIATION during Ryder Cup celebrity match as he's mocked by fans Colin Firth's ex-wife Livia dramatically hands back her MBE and tears up the prestigious certificate in fury over Trump: Activist hits out at'cowardly display of appeasing' by King Charles Barack Obama reveals he's been'digging himself out of a hole' with wife Michelle for years Wealthy oil exec'drunkenly' slammed Porsche into student, 19, causing horrific burns READ MORE: The test that spots Alzheimer's YEARS before symptoms appear For decades, scientists have thought that human consciousness arises from the newest and most sophisticated parts of the brain. But a Cambridge scientist now claims that the fundamental basis of our experience may be controlled by a far more primal structure. In a review of over a century of scientific research, neuroscientist Dr Peter Coppola examined stimulation studies, animal experiments, and neurological case reports.