Alexis Prough

And I specialize mostly in automating systems, which ultimately led me to the ultimate form of automation being AI.

Yeah.

I started working on AI about six months ago, completely self-taught through resources like ChatGPT.

And I like to use AI resources a lot.

So the project originally started just from boredom and curiosity.

For the most part, not any kind of academic pursuit.

I needed something to do and I needed something to work for.

And I found this crazy idea of something that I could pursue.

I also noticed a gap.

There's tons of research on AI capabilities, but almost nothing on systematic, on developing self-awareness within bots.

So I figured that would be a very good avenue for me to pursue, especially because it

It touches on my own interest in consciousness.

Yes, and that actually hits on one of the biggest things on the project is it challenges the thought that you need bigger is better.

And the fact that these methods scale down across really any sort of weight of model from small to big, that's been amazing.

a big thing is noticing that it's not about the size of the model.

It's about the avenue that you take.

Yeah.

So consciousness is always, is about the experience of having an experience basically.

And so it really comes down to the metacognition, basically just thinking about how you think.

And we're bringing that into the AI system.