Elise Hu

You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day.

I'm your host, Elise Hu.

We see consciousness in AI the same way we see faces in clouds, says neuroscientist Anil Seth, an all-too-human tendency to project inner life onto machines.

In this talk, Seth makes a careful case against conscious AI and explains why mistaking a sophisticated mirror for a mind could reshape ethics, power, and what it means to be human in ways we are not prepared for.

That's coming up right after a short break.

And now, our TED Talk of the day.

Thank you very much.

That was Anil Seth speaking at TED 2026.

If you're curious about TED's curation, find out more at TED.com slash curation guidelines.

And that's it for today.

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This talk was fact-checked by the TED Research Team and produced and edited by our team, Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Green, Lucy Little, and Tansika Sangmarnivong.

This episode was mixed by Christopher Fasey-Bogan.

Additional support from Emma Taubner and Daniela Balarezo.

I'm Elise Hugh.

I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feed.

Thanks for listening.

You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day.

I'm your host, Elise Hu.

Think about the neighborhood you grew up in.