Public Engagement

A selection of public engagement activities and media coverage

Videos & Podcasts

OpenAI Changes Everything (Interviewee). Could ChatGPT Be Conscious? (August 2024)
Eureka! Podcast (Interviewee). What is the most intelligent animal? (March 2023)
Aeon Video (Interviewee). Charting animal cognition (June 2021)
Many Minds Podcast (Interviewee). Can artificial minds think creatively? (March 2020)
CFI Podcast (Interviewer). A conversation with Nicky Clayton on corvid cognition (Jan 2020)
Video (Interviewee). The path to artificial consciousness by Science Human Dimension Project (Sept 2018)
CFI Podcast (Interviewer). A conversation with Peter Godfrey-Smith on animal consciousness (July 2018)
BioViews Podcast (Interviewee). Minds in the deep: Octopuses as conscious exotica (July 2018)
Short Film (Interviewee). Pain in the machine by Beth Singler and Ewan St John Smith (Nov 2016)

Article. "Can AI become conscious?" Selwyn Magazine (Summer 2025)
Interviewee. AI Film. Science Museum, London (July 2025)
Interviewee. "Cognition across the tree of life." School of Philosophy, Fudan University (August 2025)
Blog post. "Computational Modeling and Consciousness: Can Consciousness Science Move Forward without the Metaphysics?" (with Mona-Marie Wandrey). The Brains Blog (October 2023)
Interviewee. "The mysterious inner life of the octopus." BBC Future by Martha Henriques (July 2022)
Five Ways AI Is Not Like The Manhattan Project (And One Way It Is) (5 August 2019). With Joseph D. Martin. 3 Quarks Daily.
Media coverage of the Animal-AI Testbed: IEEE Spectrum (Feb 2019), the New Scientist (March 2019), MIT Technology Review (April 2019), Digital Trends (April 2019, July 2019), and others.
Blog post. “Why Animal-AI?” (with Matthew Crosby and Lucy Cheke) in Animal-AI Olympics Development Blog (May 2019)
Interviewee. “Can Machines Think?” Ignorance Amnesty, BBC Radio Cambridgeshire (Oct 2017)

"A New 'Periodic Table' Evolution, human exceptionalism and the complexity of animal intelligence." Cambridge Alumni Festival (Sept 2022)
"Major Transitions in the Evolution of Cognition" (with Andrew Barron). Diverse Intelligences Summit, St Andrews (Aug 2022)
"The Major Transitions of Intelligences" (with Andrew Barron and Colin Klein). Diverse Intelligences Summit, St Andrews (July 2021)
"Intelligence and Creativity: What is Creativity?" HowTheLightGetsIn Festival, The Institute of Art and Ideas (May 2019)
"Intelligence and Creativity: Animals and Machines." HowTheLightGetsIn Festival, The Institute of Art and Ideas (May 2019)
"Insightful AI." Pint of Science Festival, Panton Arms, Cambridge UK (May 2018)
"Can Machines Think?" Cambridge Festival of Ideas, Whipple Museum, University of Cambridge (Oct 2017)

Summer School Main Instructor. Cognition Across the Tree of Life. Sino-Australian Philosophy of Life Sciences Network (SAPoLSN). Fudan University, Shanghai, China (10-16 August 2025)
Interviewer. "Hannah Critchlow - The Science of Fate." Cambridge Literary Festival (Nov 2019)
Speaker. "Philosophy Salon: What Makes Us Human?" HowTheLightGetsInFestival, The Institute of Art and Ideas (26 May 2019)
Debate. “Metaphors of the Mind” (with Donald Hoffman and Nigel Shadbolt), HowTheLightGetsIn Festival, The Institute of Art and Ideas (27 May 2019)
Panelist. “Ground Zero Earth: Rise of the Machines.” Cambridge Science Festival, University of Cambridge (March 2019)
Speaker and Panelist. “Intelligence Up, Down, and All Around” by Susan MacTavish Best and the Templeton World Charity Foundation, Shoreditch, London (May 2018)
Song Project. “Human Beings.” Collaboration with artist Mikey Georgeson for Creative Reactions, Pint of Science Festival, Cambridge UK (May 2018)
Speaker. House of Lords Select Committee on AI in collaboration with members of the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence (November 2017)

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