Are LLMs Capable of Achieving Consciousness and AGI?

Paul Mithun’s accepted conference abstract appears on the first page of the 2025 consciousness-conference abstract collection.^[1]

Abstract-level proposal

The abstract describes a literature survey used to derive proposed criteria for conscious machines. Mithun argues that LLMs fail those criteria and proposes quantum natural language processing as a possible alternative. It belongs alongside Artificial Intelligence, Human Cognition, and Conscious Supremacy as an attributed hypothesis about Machine Intelligence.

Evidence limits

This source is a short abstract, not an accessible full methods-and-results paper. It provides neither an inspectable criterion list nor experiments demonstrating its conclusions. Failure to meet proposed consciousness criteria would not independently prove that AGI requires consciousness or that quantum language processing produces it. Conference acceptance does not settle those questions. Cite this entry for the existence and content of the proposal, not as evidence of demonstrated consciousness or an impossibility theorem.