Call It a Workspace Only After Nonlinear Ignition and Capacity Limits
Global workspace theory ignites then broadcasts under capacity limits. Scaled dot-product attention only routes over token positions.
Category Philosophy of AI
Global workspace theory in LLMs, qualia, internal experience, comparisons to neuroscience/cognitive science.
Decoder-Only Transformers Route Tokens Instead of Igniting a Global Workspace
QKV attention routes tokens rather than igniting broadcast. Decoder-only transformers fail GWT; the 2017 paper dropped recurrence. Use indicator tests.
Neither Recurrent Loops Nor Untied Depth Give Transformers Self-Monitoring
GPT-3 stacks 175 billion untied parameters while Universal Transformers reuse one block. Both broadcast. Neither creates C2 sentience.
Global Workspace Theory and Transformer Attention for Modeling Conscious Information Processing
at a Glance Transformer Attention wins for AI researchers and engineers building systems at global scale because of its parallel processing and O(n²)…
Emergent Workspace in LLMs (2026): J‑Space, Jacobian Lens, and the Future of Internal Reasoning
The emergent workspace in LLMs 2026 is a limited-capacity subspace inside the residual stream of large language models that holds roughly 25 verbalizable…