Artificial intelligence is everywhere – from chatbots to medical diagnosis – but one question remains: do these systems really think, or do they simply simulate thought? The panel brings together two perspectives. An expert in the cognitive science of AI asks whether machines can understand and reason as we do. A neuroscientist of artificial systems, working on mechanistic interpretability, takes us inside the ‘black box’ of these models. A conversation across philosophy, cognitive science and advanced research about what it really means to ‘think’.