Claude’s J-Space: A Digital Global Workspace for AI Reasoning
Anthropic researchers describe an internal activation subspace in Claude called J-space that acts like a global workspace, enabling deliberate reasoning and five cognitive properties of conscious access (verbal report, directed modulation, internal reasoning, flexible generalization, and selectivity). They also introduce J-Lens to inspect this hidden reasoning, arguing that its existence carries significant safety and alignment implications—from detecting hidden dispositions to auditing self-awareness—though critics say the findings don’t prove true consciousness and remain debated.
