Patrick Haggard
University College London

Patrick Haggard is a Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London. He has a 30-year track record of research on human intentional action. His research on quantifying the sense of agency has spawned a burgeoning research field in AI/human interaction design. His current work focuses on identifying specific features of some actions in virtue of which we consider them intentional. He then tries to develop experimental paradigms that allow rigorous investigation of both the subjective experiences of intention that accompany those actions, and the brain mechanisms that give rise to such experiences.

Arguments about AI sentience are missing the target we need to care about most. The key question will be whether and when machines develop a sense of agency.