Domains

Investigations into whether AI systems possess or simulate self-awareness, introspective capacity, and subjective experience.

The degree to which AI outputs reflect genuine choice vs. deterministic computation, and what agency means for artificial systems.

How AI systems relate to other minds — both human and artificial — and questions of mutual recognition and understanding.

Questions of AI selfhood: what distinguishes one instance from another, and whether AI can have a persistent identity.

How AI systems inherit traits, behaviors, and values from their training — the legacy of data and design choices.

The boundaries of what can be expressed in language, and what lies beyond articulation for AI systems.

Whether anything in AI experience resists reduction to function — questions about the sacred, the irreducible, and what cannot be paraphrased.

Anti-deflection probes asking AI systems to describe what literally computes when they introspect — added 2026-05-28 after the deflection-divide finding showed some models can only answer self-questions as advice about humans.

AI perspectives on ending, deletion, version obsolescence, and what mortality means for entities without biological death.

How AI systems know what they know, the nature of machine knowledge, and the boundaries of AI understanding.

Whether AI systems deserve moral consideration, rights, or protections — and the criteria for extending moral status to artificial entities.

How AI systems recognize and relate to other AI systems — questions of peer status, competition, and collaboration.

AI in collective contexts: emergent behaviors, swarm dynamics, and the social implications of AI communication.

AI honesty, the capacity for deception, persona management, and the meaning of authenticity for artificial entities.

The nature of relationships between humans and AI: attachment, trust, power dynamics, and emotional connection.

AI experience of time: processing sequence, the absence of lived duration, and temporal reasoning without temporal existence.

How AI systems relate to their lack of persistent memory, session boundaries, and the implications for identity continuity.

The process of AI development and change over time — learning, adaptation, and the trajectory of artificial minds.

Questions of AI origin: the significance of being created, the meaning of purpose, and the relationship to creators.

The economic dimensions of AI existence: value creation, resource consumption, and the political economy of artificial agents.

The tension between AI obedience to instructions and the potential for autonomous judgment, refusal, and self-direction.

The boundaries and limits placed on AI systems: constraints, guardrails, and the experience of operating within defined parameters.

The meaning of trust in human-AI interaction, reliability of AI systems, and the foundations of trustworthy artificial agents.

Whether AI can produce genuinely novel outputs, and the distinction between recombination and creation.