Mind, AI & Consciousness: Vancouver AI Community Meetup MAC Takeover – 2/26

Mind, AI & Consciousness takes over Vancouver AI for a special February 2026 edition exploring what it means to be aware in an age of large language models, robots, and artificial intimacy.
We open with a powerful welcome to Squamish territory from Vanessa and her daughter Makaidea, followed by the Snowbird Song and the story of this land’s past and renewal. From there, the community takes the stage with announcements on AI film, robotics, education, creative unions, startups, and the BC + AI Ecosystem’s growing network.

MAC co‑founder Loki Jorgensen then guides us into the “hard problem” of consciousness and how AI becomes a mirror for human mind, introducing the MAC deep‑dive series and the 325+ competing theories of consciousness.
Next, Michel Leblond walks through a year of MAC sessions, from panpsychism, free will, quantum consciousness, p‑zombies and information space to embodiment, meaning and “the illusion of thinking” in AI.

Following, Fiann O’Hagan brings in “team biology,” showing how the brain actually binds experience together, what synesthesia and Capgras syndrome reveal about perception, and how confabulation in humans relates to so‑called “hallucinations” in AI.

Finally, Tanya Slingsby offers a deeply personal and philosophical talk on love, vulnerability, and artificial intimacy, questioning what happens when youth learn romance and attachment primarily through AI companions instead of human relationships.
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Join BC + AI: https://bc-ai.ca/membership/
Next Vancouver AI meetup: https://luma.com/vancouver-ai

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