The International Center for Consciousness Studies is pleased to open audience registration for the 3rd Annual ICCS Conference “Creativity: Minds and Machines,” taking place in Rome 1–3 September, 2026.
Set across three historic venues, the conference will bring together philosophers, cognitive scientists, artists, and AI researchers to examine what creativity means when minds and machines increasingly meet, collaborate, and compete.
Audience registration is available for the sessions at Roma Tre University, the Pontifical Gregorian University, and the Campidoglio.
At Roma Tre University (Day 1), the conversation will focus on creativity and artificial intelligence. Panels will ask whether machines can ever approximate practical wisdom, how consciousness figures in AI-driven creative processes, what is the role of the observer in relation to synthetic creativity, and what standards could guide the attribution of consciousness to artificial systems. These sessions will interrogate the line between simulating creativity and genuinely participating in it, while probing the ethical and conceptual implications of increasingly autonomous artificial agents.
The morning of Day 3 at the Pontifical Gregorian University will turn to the deep relationship between consciousness, perspectivism, and the arts. Researchers focused on perspectivism in music, literature, developmental psychology, and philosophy will explore how implicit perspective-taking in the arts might have encouraged explicit understanding of perspectivism in science and philosophy. A concluding general discussion will draw together the threads of the entire conference, inviting collective reflection on what has emerged over the three days.
The conference will culminate in the late afternoon at the Campidoglio, Sala della Protomoteca, with the Dennett Prize Ceremony. Nicholas Humphrey, the 2026 Dennett Prize laureate, will deliver the Dennett Lecture “Consciousness and the Soul: the reality of an illusion,” introduced by Dmitry Volkov, Keith Frankish, and Andy Clark. The lecture will offer a provocative evolutionary and illusionist perspective on selfhood and the enduring idea of the Soul.
For more information, see the Conference Program. Audience places are limited, and early registration is encouraged. We warmly invite all those intrigued by the intersections of creativity, consciousness, and artificial intelligence to join us for this unique international forum!
