The Indeterminate Bit

A conceptual and futuristic digital artwork representing AI Consciousness.

The Indeterminate Bit is a series of essays and short articles that traverse topics from AI and technology to biology, the environment, neuroscience, and philosophy and explores the uncertain space where science and theory meet questions of consciousness, existence, and meaning.

Essays & Articles

  • A human hand reaches upward in a vast, darkened library, touching a radiant point where dozens of glowing threads converge and radiate outward toward floating books, handwritten pages, and luminous screens. Circuit patterns glow across a reflective parquet floor below.
    AI-Driven Storytelling and Narrative Engineering
    by Susanne Coates
    In 2023, a science fiction story generated almost entirely by AI won second prize in a Chinese provincial competition—only one or two of the six judges recognised its non-human origins. The same year, AI-illustrated children’s books flooded self-publishing platforms, and Hollywood writers walked out in part over fears that studios would use large language models… Read more: AI-Driven Storytelling and Narrative Engineering
  • A conceptual and futuristic digital artwork representing AI Consciousness.
    Artificial Intelligence and the Philosophical Zombie
    by Susanne Coates
    The emergence of large language models (LLMs) and other advanced machine learning systems has revived long standing philosophical debates concerning the nature of consciousness, agency, and subjective experience. One particularly salient concept is that of the philosophical zombie
  • child sitting on a pile of computers daydreaming the phrase, "I believe that I think therefor I think that I am"
    The Spectrum of Consciousness
    by Susanne Coates
    This article explores the concept of consciousness as a spectrum encompassing various forms of life and potentially extending to artificial intelligence (AI). Consciousness is considered not as a unique human trait but as a continuum of cognitive complexity observable across all species.