NYU professor argues modern LLMs act as transient “quasi-agents” rather than unified minds, raising ethical questions

# Berkeley Talks: When we talk to AI, what are we talking to? - Berkeley News Source: [http://news.berkeley.edu/2026/07/10/berkeley-talks-when-we-talk-to-ai-what-are-we-talking-to/](http://news.berkeley.edu/2026/07/10/berkeley-talks-when-we-talk-to-ai-what-are-we-talking-to/) *NYU philosopher David Chalmers explores how modern large language models challenge our traditional views of identity and ethics by generating short\-lived, conversational "selves" rather than operating as a single, permanent mind\.* July 10, 2026 In the early days of personal computing, people imagined artificial intelligence as a single, self\-contained system — a kind of digital brain with a fixed identity\. Talking to AI meant asking questions to a clearly defined machine\. That picture no longer holds, says David Chalmers, a professor of philosophy and neural science at New York University\. Today’s large language models, or LLMs, run on distributed cloud infrastructure, so they don’t behave like a single fixed machine with one clear physical boundary\. While LLMs likely lack consciousness, he says, they are not merely passive tools\. Instead, they’re “quasi\-agents” that exhibit goal\-directed behavior shaped by context\. Each back\-and\-forth between the user and the agent holds together as a coherent exchange, but it only exists for the duration of that interaction\. If this thread is the real unit of interaction, he says, then agency isn’t something the system permanently processes\. Rather, it emerges during use\. In this*Berkeley Talks*episode, Chalmers asks: When we’re interacting with AI, what*exactly*are we interacting with? If these short\-lived “selves” exhibit beliefs and goals within a conversation, do they warrant any ethical consideration? Chalmers’ talk took place at UC Berkeley’s International House on May 7\. It was the inaugural[Sarah Douglas Lecture on Philosophy and Artificial Intelligence](https://philosophy.berkeley.edu/events/sarah_douglas_lectures), sponsored by Berkeley’s[Department of Philosophy](https://philosophy.berkeley.edu/)\. Watch David Chalmers give the inaugural Sarah Douglas Lecture on Philosophy and Artificial Intelligence on May 7 at UC Berkeley\.