Last week, Roman Yampolskiy and Alan Cowen disagreed about AI and existential risk. In that conversation, we discussed some big questions about AI and the future of humanity.
We also took a small detour to dive into the question of whether or not AI can become conscious.
What is consciousness?
Consciousness, in the context of this conversation, refers to the ability for human beings (and many animals) to have subjective experiences – to suffer and experience joy and a wide range of emotions - as opposed to a robot that can see, hear, touch, smell and taste, but still is essentially…a toaster (no offense to toasters).
In this bonus conversation, we apply the question of whether an AI can become conscious to Alan’s company, Hume AI, and their chatbot EVI.
Our host, Alex, also had a chance to play with EVI. You can hear that strange clip in our Substack post here.
We hope you enjoy this bonus conversation with Roman Yampolskiy and Alan Cowen.
And, if you haven’t listened to the feature episode yet, check it out here.
xoxo,
The Disagreement Team
Tell Us Your Thoughts
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Bonus: Can AI Become Conscious?