Liad Mudrik in Nature:
These are good times to be a thinking, conscious creature, despite events in the world that might make us doubt that. These are even better times to be a creature who thinks about consciousness: the scientific debate is livelier than ever, and technological advances and political controversies are making the practical and philosophical questions surrounding consciousness ever more pressing. Will artificial intelligence (AI) become conscious? (Or maybe it already is…? Well, no, I would say, but we’ll get to that later.) Can state-of-the-art algorithms manipulate our consciousness to change our view of the world? Which animals, besides humans, are conscious? What about fetuses? Or artificial neural organoids?
It is becoming clearer that real-life implications will be drawn from the answers that this field generates to such questions. That means we must vastly improve our fundamental understanding of consciousness and related phenomena, such as agency, free will and sense of self. With so much at stake, we had better get things right. This sense of gravity hovers above three books that, in one way or another, tackle these thorny questions.
More here.