AI Research Circle: A Global Workspace Inside LLMs

The Commons: Third Space (Hayes Valley) Event Link Do language models have anything like conscious access? Global workspace theory is a leading framework for how consciousness works in the human mind: many specialized processes compete for a shared stage, and whatever wins gets broadcast to the whole system. In a new interpretability paper, Anthropic researchers found evidence for a mechanism inside LLMs that behaves a lot like one. This session, Commons member David Valdman will walk us through the paper, "Verbalizable Representations Form a Global Workspace in Language Models": • What global workspace theory says about conscious access, and why it's a useful lens for looking inside a model. • The math and careful prompt engineering experiments the researchers used to support their claims. • How far does the analogy go? We'll close with discussion and Q&A. This session is presented by David Valdman and will be filmed for the Rally SF YouTube channel. Pre-read (optional but encouraged): • Anthropic's global workspace blog post: anthropic.com/research/global-workspace • Interpreting GPT: the Logit Lens (a simpler technique this paper improves on): lesswrong.com/posts/AcKRB8wDpdaN6v6ru/interpreting-gpt-the-logit-lens Optional supplemental reading: • The paper itself: transformer-circuits.pub/2026/workspace/index.html • Global Workspace Theory: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_workspace_theory ―――――――――― About the AI Research Circle A community gathering at The Commons where we explore AI research together. No research background required. Just curiosity. Each session, we pick a paper or topic, break it down, and open it up for discussion. The goal: make cutting-edge ideas accessible and spark conversation across disciplines. Rally (rallysf.com) is a community for AI-first builders and operators in San Francisco. ―――――――――― SF Stuff To Do Do not edit this event! changes will be overwritten