Name: Does AI have a soul?
Start: 2025-08-15T19:00:00+02:00
Location: Сарајевска 48, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia

Does it, really? In this talk, I’ll try to think about this topic together with you. I will also share the best current academic and industry research, drawing on which, we’ll examine what today’s models actually do when they reason, explain, and interact. We’ll discuss things like AI “personas”, “Mutual Theory of Mind”, "cost of thinking", what is metacognition, and why it is important to all the matters above. Together, we’ll approach the future of AI with scepticism, courage, and curiosity.
Speaker: Ilya Zakharov, PhD in Psychology, is a senior researcher at the Human-AI experience team at JetBrains Research. He has more than 10-years of experience in research in the intersection between psychology, neuroscience and behavioral genetics, which he now applies to understand how people interact with AI