The ethical impasse of current consciousness science.
Neuron June 17, 2026 Vincent Taschereau-Dumouchel, Jun Seo Hwang, Hakwan Lau et al.
Growing public discussion about consciousness in animals, fetuses, organoids, and artificial intelligence has prompted strong claims. However, most of these claims rely on 'markers' of consciousness that measure general information processing capacity rather than subjective experience itself. Consequently, the usefulness of such markers for settling theoretical debates about consciousness may be limited.