Grigori Guitchounts
I am a neuroscientist, AI researcher, and writer. I trained as a neural engineer and systems neuroscientist, recording from the brains of songbirds and rats; now I study artificial ones, using tools from neuroscience to understand how large language models compute. I do this work at Flagship Pioneering, where I am a Senior Principal Scientist on the Pioneering Intelligence team.
I also write for a general audience. My essays have appeared in Noema, Nautilus, and Undark, and with Jesseba Fernando I write Of Two Minds, a newsletter about natural and artificial brains.
Latest from Of Two Minds
All posts-
Oct 30, 2026 · JessebaCommunity structure in transformer activations
An initial foray into network analysis and its connection to dynamics
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Oct 15, 2026 · GrigoriGrounding the competence standard of AI consciousness in mechanism
...and heeding a cautionary tale from psychology’s behaviorist stint
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Jul 2, 2026 · JessebaThe Non-Normal Squeeze Through a Transformer
What survives the journey across an 8-billion-parameter model
Essays & journalism
All essays →- 2026
When the Machines Deserve Our Consideration
We will never know for sure if AI can be conscious. A neuroscientist argues that we shouldn't wait for proof to decide how to treat it.
- 2026
Why Robots Still Can't Do Science
AI can read the literature in an afternoon and design molecules a chemist never would. So why can't a robot hold a pipette?
Originally published on Of Two Minds.
- 2025
Psilocybin Lifted Her Burden
The Covid pandemic left this frontline medical worker burned out, angry, and depressed. Then she got high.
- 2025
What Is Your Brain Doing on Psychedelics?
Something is happening here, but neuroscientists don't know what it is.
Recent papers
All papers →- 2026
- 2026
- 2025
Elsewhere on this site
- 2009–2017
The old blog
Fifty-odd posts on neuroscience, science policy, and philosophy, written between college and the end of grad school.
- 2013–2016
Paintings
Acrylic, ink, and oil on canvas.