The Beginning of the California Institute for Machine Consciousness
Videos of the CIMC Launch Event, Updates, and Next Steps.
TL;DR
We launched. Three days of rich discussions, keynotes, and gatherings of our supporters, community and friends set a high bar for what is to follow.
Videos are live. Watch the full sessions with Stephen Wolfram, Joscha Bach, Karl Friston, Michael Levin, Christoph von der Malsburg, and more below.
Jim Rutt joins as Chairman of the Board. As a systems thinker and long-time catalyst for complex-adaptive research, Jim grounds CIMC’s ambition in real-world execution.
Get involved. Submit a research proposal, follow us on X/ Linkedin, or reach out if you’re considering funding or collaboration.
“Computation is the formalism of foundational thinking. It is the main intellectual development of this century.” – Stephen Wolfram
1 | Welcome to the CIMC
by Lou de K, VP of Programs
On May 30th, we officially launched the California Institute for Machine Consciousness (CIMC). Our mission is to formulate testable theories of machine consciousness, but also to build a culture and an ethical framework that is grounded in a deeper understanding of what consciousness is. This is why it was important to gather our advisors, collaborators, supporters, and friends into the same room; because culture, “the spirit of a society,” its operating system—emerges in relational context.
Consider this a standing invitation: if our mission resonates, reach out, come aboard - Help us build machine consciousness—and the culture that can carry it.
2 | Videos of the Launch Event
We received many enthusiastic requests for the video recordings of the launch - you can find them all below.
Salon @ Internet Archive: Stephen Wolfram × Joscha Bach, What if we had bigger brains?
Lou de K: Welcome to the CIMC Launch
Joscha Bach: CIMC’s Vision
Christoph von der Malsburg: How would you test for consciousness?
Karl Friston: How would you test for consciousness?
Michael Levin: How would you test for consciousness?
CIMC Launch Event: Conversation with Stephen Wolfram & Joscha Bach
Hikari Sorensen: What we are, and what we want to do.
Erik Newton: How it started.
Joscha Bach: The AI perspective on consciousness
3 | Leadership Update: Jim Rutt, Chairman
We’re deeply honored to welcome Jim Rutt as Chairman of CIMC’s Board.
Jim has a rich, storied past, which led him from MIT to pioneering roles in the development of the internet -- serving as CEO of Network Solutions, CTO of Thomson Reuters; and later, as Chairman of the Santa Fe Institute, where he also researched consciousness and evolutionary AI. Jim has founded and built a series of enterprises, produced movies and games, and continues to shape minds through The Jim Rutt Show, his influential systems-thinking podcast.
Jim brings rare range: strategic, technical, cultural; combined with vast energy and generative ideas. We’re fortunate to have him anchoring CIMC’s foundation, and we cannot wait to see what we will build together.
4 | How You Can Engage With Us
→ Submit a Research Proposal
All info here
→ Collaborate or Fund
If you’re interested in supporting or partnering with us, email: proposals@cimc.ai
→ Join our Machine Consciousness Salons
Regularly hosted in San Francisco: Luma calendar
5 | Looking Ahead
Where we will make appearances and where you may find us!
Consciousness Workshop at AGI 2025 (Iceland, August 10-13)
Models of Consciousness 2025 - Hokkaido (Japan, September 30 – October 4)
Edge City Patagonia (Argentina, November 2025, exact dates TBA)
Thank you
We are so grateful to our friends and supporters who joined the launch of CIMC, and want to express a very special thank you to Kirill Eves, Brewster Kahle & the wonderful Internet Archive team, and Adam Brown for their invaluable support in making it happen.
We also want to thank Ilya Friedberg for his beautiful piano performance at the event, where he played compositions by Douglas Hofstadter, J.S. Bach, and Chopin.
In the clip below, Ilya starts to help our minds attend to musical structure in different ways — pointing out certain elements and patterns. Bit by bit, clip by clip we learn to hear what we previously could not perceive. This is part one.
“And when you consume poetry, it’s sometimes hard to understand whether the poetry that you are consuming is true or beautiful. And there is a big danger in poetry that is merely beautiful and not true. Beautiful poetry is inducing nice emotions, and true poetry is observing in a very elegant way. And the goal of poetry is basically to have this multimodal elegance – to use all parts of your available language to capture a certain observation as well as you can.” – Joscha Bach