Recently I watched an interview with Geoffrey Hinton — often called the godfather of AI. In 2024, he received the Nobel Prize in Physics for his groundbreaking work on artificial neural networks, work that fundamentally reshaped how machines learn.
At one point, the interviewer asked him whether artificial intelligence could ever be conscious in the same way humans are. Hinton’s was quietly dismissive of the word itself. “People don’t know what consciousness is,” he said. “And they often don’t know what they mean by it.”
That sentence stayed with me. Because at the same time, in leadership circles, sustainability movements, and societal transition spaces, we hear a very different message: that what our time requires is raised consciousness, conscious leadership, higher awareness. The implication is clear — if only we could elevate how we see the world, many of our problems would begin to resolve themselves.
Consciousness as an explanatory shortcut
Hinton offers a thought experiment that feels almost Black Mirror-like. Imagine replacing one neuron in your brain with a tiny piece of nanotechnology that behaves in exactly the same way. It receives signals from other neurons, sends signals onward, and the surrounding system cannot tell that anything has changed. You would still be conscious.
Now imagine replacing another neuron, and another, until eventually every biological neuron has been substituted with its technological equivalent. At what precise moment, Hinton asks, would you stop being conscious?
The question exposes a deeply ingrained assumption: that consciousness is some ethereal substance or essence that exists independently of the physical system. Something you either have or do not have. Hinton rejects this entirely. He is equally dismissive of what he calls the “theatre model” of the mind — the idea that somewhere inside us there is a special place where consciousness happens.
For him, consciousness is an emergent property. It arises when a system becomes sufficiently complex to perceive, to model itself, and to reflect on its own processes. There is no sharp boundary where consciousness suddenly appears.
Hinton suggests that consciousness functions in much the same way. It feels like the essence of something deeply important, but as an explanatory concept it is vague and imprecise – a bit like the oomph some people get with certain cars. It may describe a felt experience, but it explains very little. As our understanding of cognition improves, he expects the term to gradually fall out of use — not because the phenomenon disappears, but because we develop better, more specific ways of describing what is actually going on.
And yet, he is clear on one point: there is no reason in principle why machines could not have consciousness. If consciousness involves self-awareness, cognition about one’s own cognition, then sufficiently advanced systems may well possess some form of it. Not as a gift, not as a soul, but as a consequence of complexity. There will be no moment of sudden awakening, no special switch flipped. Just gradual emergence. Which brings us back to leadership.
The rise of consciousness as a leadership ideal
In leadership discourse, the language of consciousness has become increasingly prominent. And it is not hard to see why. It gestures toward a shift beyond ego-driven decision-making, toward greater compassion, longer time horizons, and a more systemic understanding of impact. In a world shaped by ecological breakdown, social fragmentation, and institutional distrust, this emphasis on inner development feels both necessary and overdue.
There is truth here. The dominant leadership model of recent decades; hyper-rational, financially reductionist, and largely disconnected from human and ecological reality, has helped produce the poly-crisis we now inhabit. Values matter. Inner orientation matters. Awareness matters. But there is also a risk in how the concept is being used. What if “raised consciousness” is becoming the leadership equivalent of “oomph”?
When consciousness turns into comfort
The danger is not that consciousness is irrelevant, but that it becomes comfortably vague. Words like “higher” or “deeper” awareness subtly create hierarchies of moral or developmental superiority. Those who speak the language are assumed to be more evolved; those who do not are quietly positioned as lagging behind. Old power dynamics return, dressed in gentler clothes.
Even more problematically, the language of consciousness can function as a way around difficult choices. It is far easier to speak about inner awareness than to shut down profitable but harmful activities, to confront investor expectations, or to redesign incentive systems that reward short-term extraction. Inner work does not automatically translate into outer change.
In some cases, appeals to consciousness even delay accountability. When leaders frame themselves as “on a journey,” concrete results can always be deferred to a later stage of development. Meanwhile, the structures that perpetuate harm remain largely untouched.
Grounded maturity
Perhaps the leadership our time requires is not so much more conscious as it is more mature. Maturity is less seductive than enlightenment. It does not promise transcendence or purity. Instead, it involves living with unresolved tension, acting without full certainty, and accepting that meaningful transition often involves real loss — of status, revenue, or familiar identities.
Mature leaders do not need to claim higher awareness. They demonstrate it through the choices they make when trade-offs are unavoidable, when the costs are real, and when no option allows them to remain untouched.
Instead of asking how we can raise consciousness, a more demanding question might be this: what are we willing to give up personally, organizationally, economically, in order to meet the reality of this moment where humanity is under siege from climate and generateive AI threats?
That question cannot be answered by inner work, strategy or technology alone. It calls for something quieter and far less marketable than most leadership narratives offer: commitment!
If Geoffrey Hinton is right, “consciousness” may one day feel like an outdated word — a placeholder we relied on before we understood cognition more clearly. If so, leadership that depends on the term may age poorly. Leadership maturely grounded in clear seeing, moral courage, and disciplined action will not. And perhaps that is the real invitation of our time: not to become more conscious, but to become more answerable.
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