WEBVTT - Rerun: The Ghost in the Machine 0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:12.640 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.640 --> 0:00:15.960 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:16.000 --> 0:00:19.639 I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and how the 0:00:19.680 --> 0:00:23.320 tech are you. I'm actually a little under the weather today. 0:00:23.920 --> 0:00:28.960 I got my vaccinations for fluent COVID and so I've 0:00:29.000 --> 0:00:32.920 got a few symptoms, nothing serious, but it is hard 0:00:32.960 --> 0:00:38.440 for me to talk, which unfortunately is one of the 0:00:38.560 --> 0:00:43.440 pivotal aspects of podcasting. So while I continue to work 0:00:43.440 --> 0:00:46.800 on episodes, I thought I would bring you an episode 0:00:46.840 --> 0:00:49.440 from just a couple of years ago because spooky times 0:00:49.440 --> 0:00:51.760 are coming up, and with spooky times coming up, I 0:00:51.760 --> 0:00:54.240 thought we could have a spooky times kind of episode, 0:00:54.240 --> 0:00:57.720 at least, you know, tangentially. So I bring to you 0:00:57.760 --> 0:01:02.280 an episode that published on October twenty four, twenty twenty two. 0:01:02.480 --> 0:01:06.720 It is titled The Ghost in the Machine. I hope 0:01:06.720 --> 0:01:15.000 you enjoy. We are continuing our spooky episode series and 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:19.680 the lead up to Halloween twenty twenty two. Apologies if 0:01:19.959 --> 0:01:23.760 you're from the future listening back on this episode. That's 0:01:24.160 --> 0:01:28.559 why the bizarre theme is popping up. We've already talked 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:33.160 recently about stuff like Van Bier power and zombie computers 0:01:33.160 --> 0:01:38.240 where I'm really grasping at tenuous connections to horror stuff 0:01:38.480 --> 0:01:41.680 for tech. But now it's time to tackle the ghost 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:47.560 in the machine. These days, that phrase is frequently bandied 0:01:47.600 --> 0:01:51.960 about with relation to stuff like artificial intelligence. But the 0:01:52.560 --> 0:01:56.600 man who coined the phrase itself was Gilbert Ryle in 0:01:56.680 --> 0:02:01.240 nineteen forty nine, and he wasn't talking about artificial intelligence 0:02:01.280 --> 0:02:05.200 at all. He was talking about, you know, real intelligence, 0:02:05.640 --> 0:02:10.040 and he was critiquing a seventeenth century philosopher's argument about 0:02:10.080 --> 0:02:15.200 the human mind. That philosopher was Renee Descartes, who famously wrote, 0:02:15.320 --> 0:02:20.600 cogito ergo sum, I drink therefore I am sorry. It's 0:02:20.600 --> 0:02:22.840 going to be impossible for me to talk about philosophers 0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:27.240 without quoting Monty Python because I'm a dork. Okay, No, 0:02:27.400 --> 0:02:31.320 cogito ergo sum actually means I think, therefore I am, 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:34.880 or that's how we interpret it. But that wasn't really 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:39.040 the bit that Gilbert Ryle was all riled up about. 0:02:39.560 --> 0:02:45.120 See Descartes believed in dualism. Now, I don't mean that 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:47.760 he believed in showing up at dawn to sword fight 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:51.600 other philosophers. Though, if someone wants to make a philosopher 0:02:51.760 --> 0:02:55.520 version of Highlander. I am one hundred percent down with that, 0:02:55.639 --> 0:02:59.239 and I will back your kickstarter. No. No, Descartes believed 0:02:59.720 --> 0:03:03.840 that the mind and you know, consciousness and sentience and 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:07.800 all this kind of stuff are separate from the actual 0:03:08.360 --> 0:03:12.600 gray matter that resides in our noggins. So, in other words, 0:03:13.080 --> 0:03:16.520 intelligence and awareness and all that other stuff that makes 0:03:16.639 --> 0:03:22.519 you you exists independently of your physical brain. That there 0:03:22.600 --> 0:03:27.239 is this this component that is beyond the physical Now, 0:03:27.320 --> 0:03:31.359 Ryle referred to this concept as the ghost in the machine, 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:35.920 that somehow all the things that represent you are you know, 0:03:35.960 --> 0:03:40.520 to great effect, ethereally independent of the brain itself. And 0:03:40.640 --> 0:03:44.680 Ryle rejects that notion, and you know, Ryle appears to 0:03:44.720 --> 0:03:48.000 be right. We know this because there are plenty of 0:03:48.080 --> 0:03:52.000 case studies focusing on people who have experienced brain injuries, 0:03:52.400 --> 0:03:56.600 either from some physical calamity or a disease or something 0:03:56.640 --> 0:04:01.600 along those lines. And these events all often transform people 0:04:01.760 --> 0:04:07.160 and change their behaviors and their underlying personalities. So the 0:04:07.280 --> 0:04:11.040 damage to the physical stuff inside our heads can change 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:14.640 who we are as people. That seems to dismiss this 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:19.400 concept of dualism that the mind and the brain are 0:04:19.480 --> 0:04:25.880 not separate entities. Take that descartes anyway. That's where we 0:04:25.920 --> 0:04:29.040 get the phrase the ghost in the machine. The machine 0:04:29.080 --> 0:04:32.520 in this case is a biological one in the original 0:04:32.560 --> 0:04:36.640 sense of the phrase. In nineteen sixty seven, Arthur Kustler 0:04:37.120 --> 0:04:39.440 he wrote a book called The Ghost in the Machine 0:04:40.040 --> 0:04:42.760 and or at least it was published in nineteen sixty seven, 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:48.599 and he was a Hungarian born, Austrian educated journalist. So 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:52.680 his book The Ghost of the Machine was an attempt 0:04:52.680 --> 0:04:57.920 to examine and explain humanity's tendency toward violence, as well 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:01.480 as going over the mind body problem that Ryle had 0:05:01.480 --> 0:05:04.039 addressed when he coined the phrase to begin with in 0:05:04.120 --> 0:05:07.400 nineteen forty nine. All right, then flash forward a couple 0:05:07.400 --> 0:05:10.360 of decades, nineteen eighty one, and we get the title 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:14.200 of what was the fourth studio album of the Police, 0:05:14.680 --> 0:05:17.880 you know Sting and the Police. Now I say this 0:05:18.839 --> 0:05:21.240 in case you were thinking that Sting and Company were 0:05:21.320 --> 0:05:25.000 naming their album off the technological use of the term 0:05:25.080 --> 0:05:27.960 ghost of the machine, but they were not. Sting good 0:05:27.960 --> 0:05:31.800 Old Gordy had read Kussler's book, and he took the 0:05:31.880 --> 0:05:35.520 album's title from the book title. So in case you're 0:05:35.520 --> 0:05:38.479 wondering That's also the album that brought us songs like 0:05:38.640 --> 0:05:42.080 every little thing she does as magic and spirits in 0:05:42.120 --> 0:05:49.240 the material world. For a really recent exploration of dualism, well, 0:05:49.360 --> 0:05:52.680 arguably it's more than dualism. I guess you can actually 0:05:52.720 --> 0:05:57.919 watch Pixar's Inside Out. That's a film that solidified my 0:05:58.000 --> 0:06:01.719 reputation as an unfeeling monster among my friends because I 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:04.960 didn't feel anything when bing Bong meets his final fate. 0:06:05.040 --> 0:06:07.480 I just couldn't care. I mean, he's not even real 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:11.040 in the context of the film, let alone in my world, 0:06:11.120 --> 0:06:14.560 so why would I know? Okay, never mind anyway. In 0:06:14.560 --> 0:06:19.800 Inside Out, we learn that our emotions are actual anthropomorphic 0:06:20.040 --> 0:06:24.599 entities living inside our heads that share the controls to 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:29.440 our behavior. That we are in effect governed by our emotions, 0:06:29.640 --> 0:06:33.479 and our emotions, in turn are the responsibilities of entities 0:06:33.640 --> 0:06:38.960 like joy and anger and disgust. Descartes probably would have 0:06:39.000 --> 0:06:43.080 been thrilled and rale Likeli would have rolled his eyes. Anyway, 0:06:43.080 --> 0:06:46.119 The trope of having a little voice inside your head 0:06:46.720 --> 0:06:50.760 that is somehow separate from you and also you is 0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:53.760 a really popular one. I always think of Homer Simpson, 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:57.080 who will often find himself arguing with his own brain 0:06:57.200 --> 0:07:01.679 for comedic effect. It's another example of doue in popular culture. 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:05.800 But the idiom the ghost of the machine survived its 0:07:05.880 --> 0:07:10.440 initial philosophical and journalistic trappings, and now folks tend to 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:13.920 use it to describe stuff that's actually in the technological world. 0:07:14.240 --> 0:07:17.360 We're talking about machines, as in the stuff that we 0:07:17.480 --> 0:07:20.120 humans make, as opposed to the stuff that we are 0:07:21.440 --> 0:07:25.280 generally in tech. The phrase describes a situation in which 0:07:25.320 --> 0:07:29.920 a technological device or construct behaves in a way counter 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:34.200 to what we expect or want. At least that was 0:07:34.200 --> 0:07:36.120 the way it was used for quite some time. So 0:07:36.640 --> 0:07:40.000 for example, let's say that you've got yourself a robotic 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:44.080 vacuum cleaner, and you've set the schedule so that it's 0:07:44.120 --> 0:07:47.040 only going to run early in the afternoon, and then 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:51.200 one night you wake up hearing the worrying and bumping 0:07:51.280 --> 0:07:54.160 of your rumba as it aimlessly wanders your home in 0:07:54.200 --> 0:07:58.320 search of dirt and dust to consume, and you spend 0:07:58.320 --> 0:08:00.560 a few sleepy moments wondering if there's some sort of 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:04.440 conscientious intruder who's made their way into your house and 0:08:04.480 --> 0:08:08.280 now they're tidying up. Before you realize no, it's that 0:08:08.440 --> 0:08:12.760 darn robot vacuum cleaner. There's a ghost in a machine. 0:08:12.880 --> 0:08:17.000 It's decided on its own to come awake and start working. Now, Alternatively, 0:08:17.080 --> 0:08:19.239 maybe you just goofed up when you created the schedule 0:08:19.240 --> 0:08:22.000 and you mixed up your AMS and your pms. That's 0:08:22.040 --> 0:08:26.360 also a possibility. But you know, sometimes technology does behave 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:28.400 in a way that we don't expect. Either there's a 0:08:28.440 --> 0:08:33.800 malfunction or it just encounters some sort of scenario that 0:08:33.880 --> 0:08:36.960 it was not designed for, and so the result it 0:08:37.000 --> 0:08:40.079 produces is not the one we want, and we tend 0:08:40.120 --> 0:08:43.079 to try and kind of cover that up with this 0:08:43.600 --> 0:08:46.680 blanket explanation of ghosts in the machine kind of stands 0:08:46.679 --> 0:08:49.720 as a placeholder until we can really suss out what's 0:08:49.840 --> 0:08:53.599 going on underneath. Programmers sometimes use the phrase ghost in 0:08:53.640 --> 0:08:57.880 the machine to describe moments where you get something unexpected 0:08:58.320 --> 0:09:01.400 while you're coding, Like you get an unexpected result, like 0:09:01.440 --> 0:09:05.320 you've coded something to produce a specific outcome, and something 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:10.760 else happens instead. So the programmer didn't intend for this 0:09:10.880 --> 0:09:15.280 result to happen, and so therefore the cause must be external, Right, 0:09:15.679 --> 0:09:18.760 It's got to be some sort of ghost in the machine. 0:09:18.760 --> 0:09:21.040 That's causing this to go wrong. Now I'm joshing a 0:09:21.040 --> 0:09:24.520 bit here. Of course, Usually this is a way for 0:09:24.600 --> 0:09:26.720 a programmer to kind of acknowledge that things are not 0:09:26.800 --> 0:09:29.640 going to plan and that they need to go back 0:09:29.679 --> 0:09:32.480 and look over their code much more closely to find 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:35.600 out what's going on. Where did things go wrong? Does 0:09:35.720 --> 0:09:39.760 encoding all it takes is like a skipped step where 0:09:40.120 --> 0:09:42.679 you know you've just you just missed a thing, and 0:09:42.960 --> 0:09:46.480 you you went on one step beyond where you thought 0:09:46.520 --> 0:09:49.400 you were, or maybe you made a typo, you got 0:09:49.400 --> 0:09:52.200 some missed keystrokes in there. That can be all it 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:54.880 takes to make a program misbehave, and so then you 0:09:54.920 --> 0:09:57.920 have to hunt down the bugs they're causing the problem. 0:09:58.280 --> 0:10:00.760 But you know, if a program is acting very oddly, 0:10:00.880 --> 0:10:04.600 you might call it a ghost of the machine scenario. Now, 0:10:04.720 --> 0:10:09.000 I'm not sure about the timeline for when folks in 0:10:09.040 --> 0:10:12.480 the tech space began to appropriate the phrase ghost in 0:10:12.520 --> 0:10:15.079 the machine for their work, because when it comes to 0:10:15.160 --> 0:10:18.520 stuff like this, you're really entering the world of folklore. 0:10:18.960 --> 0:10:22.839 And folklore is largely an oral tradition where you are 0:10:22.920 --> 0:10:27.120 passing ideas along one person to the next, speaking about it. 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:30.960 There's not necessarily a firm written record, at least not 0:10:31.040 --> 0:10:33.840 one where you can point to something and say this 0:10:33.920 --> 0:10:36.720 is where it began, Not like Ryle's version of the 0:10:36.760 --> 0:10:39.840 phrase ghost in the Machine itself, which was published, so 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:42.360 we can point to that as saying this is where 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:45.400 the phrase comes from. This would be what Richard Dawkins 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:48.840 would refer to as a meme, a little nugget of 0:10:48.960 --> 0:10:53.320 culture that gets passed on from person to person. But 0:10:53.840 --> 0:10:57.120 it also has been used in literature to refer to 0:10:57.520 --> 0:11:03.200 technological situations. Arthur's Clark, whom I've referenced many times in 0:11:03.280 --> 0:11:06.040 this show, as he's the guy who explained that any 0:11:06.120 --> 0:11:11.520 sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. He also used 0:11:11.520 --> 0:11:16.280 the phrase ghost in the Machine to talk about AI. Specifically, 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:19.360 he used it in his follow up to his novel, 0:11:19.480 --> 0:11:22.440 his work of fiction two thousand and one, A Space Odyssey. 0:11:22.800 --> 0:11:27.640 The follow up is called, fittingly enough, twenty ten Odyssey two. 0:11:28.760 --> 0:11:34.000 Chapter forty two of twenty ten is titled the Ghost 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:37.120 in the Machine, and the focal point for that chapter 0:11:37.760 --> 0:11:42.280 is characters discussing how that's the AI system from two 0:11:42.320 --> 0:11:44.840 thousand and one that caused all the trouble so quick 0:11:44.920 --> 0:11:46.720 recap of two thousand and one for those of you 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:50.400 not familiar with the story and two thousand and one 0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:53.280 the film, the Stanley Kubrick film gets pretty lucy goosey, 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:56.200 So we're just going to focus on the main narrative here. 0:11:56.559 --> 0:12:00.080 You have a crew aboard a spacecraft and a mayormer 0:12:00.200 --> 0:12:03.880 in spacecraft called Discovery one, which is on its way 0:12:03.880 --> 0:12:08.240 toward Jupiter. Now, the ship has a really sophisticated computer 0:12:08.320 --> 0:12:13.360 system called HOW nine thousand that controls nearly everything on board. 0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:18.600 Also fun little trivia fact, how HL means that the 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:23.080 initials are each one letter off from IBM, though Arthur C. 0:12:23.080 --> 0:12:27.840 Clark would claim that that was not intentional. Anyway, How 0:12:28.480 --> 0:12:32.040 begins to act erratically in the mission. At one point, 0:12:32.080 --> 0:12:35.480 How insists there's a malfunction in a system that appears 0:12:35.520 --> 0:12:39.960 to be perfectly functional, that it's working just fine. Then 0:12:40.040 --> 0:12:44.040 How systematically begins to eliminate the crew after learning they 0:12:44.120 --> 0:12:47.560 plan to disconnect the computer system because they suspect something's 0:12:47.600 --> 0:12:51.640 going wrong. How figures out that plan by monitoring a 0:12:51.679 --> 0:12:55.040 conversation that a couple of crew members have in a 0:12:55.720 --> 0:12:59.280 room where there are no microphones, so How can't listen 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:02.840 in on this conversation. But How is able to direct 0:13:03.080 --> 0:13:05.920 a video feed to that room and is able to 0:13:06.040 --> 0:13:09.000 read the lips of the crew members as they talk 0:13:09.040 --> 0:13:13.800 about their plan. So How continues to try and wipe 0:13:13.800 --> 0:13:16.960 everybody out, and he explains or it I shouldn't give 0:13:17.000 --> 0:13:21.880 him a gender. How explains that the computer systems being 0:13:21.920 --> 0:13:25.240 turned off would jeopardize the mission, and How cannot allow 0:13:25.280 --> 0:13:28.880 that to happen. How's prime directive is to make certain 0:13:28.920 --> 0:13:31.959 the mission is a success, so anything that would threaten 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:35.160 its own existence has to be eliminated. There's also the 0:13:35.200 --> 0:13:39.040 implication that How does not want to cease to exist, 0:13:39.120 --> 0:13:43.280 that How has a personal motivation beyond seeing the mission 0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:46.839 to completion, and so How has no choice but to 0:13:46.920 --> 0:13:49.360 kill everyone. It's not that How wants to murder everyone. 0:13:49.400 --> 0:13:51.600 It's just that in order to complete the mission, that's 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:55.640 the only outcome that makes sense. Eventually, one of the crew, 0:13:55.880 --> 0:14:00.160 Dave Bowman, manages to turn off How, and How wonders allowil. 0:14:00.440 --> 0:14:05.559 What will happen afterward? Will its consciousness continue once its 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:11.319 circuits are powered down? Will I dream? It? Says? Well? Anyway. 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:14.600 In Odyssey two, you now have this group of astronauts 0:14:14.600 --> 0:14:20.000 and cosmonauts in a Soviet American joint effort that are 0:14:20.560 --> 0:14:25.040 trying to figure out what happened with How. Was there 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:30.560 something inherently flawed in How's programming? Did some external element 0:14:30.720 --> 0:14:36.480 cause how to malfunction? Did How's apparent consciousness emerge spontaneously 0:14:36.640 --> 0:14:39.800 all on its own? Was it all just a sophisticated 0:14:39.840 --> 0:14:43.320 trick And How never really had any sort of consciousness? 0:14:43.320 --> 0:14:45.800 It only appeared to. So the crew are kind of 0:14:45.880 --> 0:14:49.440 left to ponder this themselves. They don't have any easy answers. 0:14:50.080 --> 0:14:53.400 That's just one example of the ghost of the machine 0:14:53.440 --> 0:14:57.560 concept being handled in entertainment. When we come back, I'll 0:14:57.600 --> 0:15:00.720 talk about a different one. But first let's take this 0:15:00.840 --> 0:15:12.760 quick break. Okay, before the break, I talked about Arthur C. 0:15:12.920 --> 0:15:16.680 Clark and his work with the concept of ghost in 0:15:16.680 --> 0:15:20.560 the machine. Let's now leap over to Isaac Asimov, or 0:15:20.600 --> 0:15:24.160 at least an adaptation of Asimov's work. So the film 0:15:24.280 --> 0:15:28.200 version of I Robot, which really bears only a passing 0:15:28.280 --> 0:15:33.360 resemblance to the short stories that Isaac Asimov wrote that 0:15:33.440 --> 0:15:37.160 were also collected in a book called I Robot, uses 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:40.640 the phrase ghost in the machine. Isaac Asimov, by the way, 0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:42.880 in case you're not familiar with his work, he's the 0:15:42.920 --> 0:15:47.760 guy who also proposed the basic laws of robotics, which 0:15:48.280 --> 0:15:51.720 are pretty famous as well. So in the film the 0:15:51.840 --> 0:15:56.200 character doctor Alfred Lanning, who actually does appear in Asimov's stories, 0:15:56.240 --> 0:15:59.320 but he's a very different version than the one that 0:15:59.360 --> 0:16:02.880 appears in the film. He says in a voiceover quote, 0:16:03.200 --> 0:16:07.280 there have always been ghosts in the machine, random segments 0:16:07.280 --> 0:16:10.760 of code that have grouped together to form unexpected protocols. 0:16:11.360 --> 0:16:16.800 Unanticipated these free radicals engender questions of free will, creativity, 0:16:17.040 --> 0:16:19.720 and even the nature of what we might call the soul. 0:16:20.320 --> 0:16:23.720 Why is it that when some robots are left in darkness, 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:26.480 they will seek out the light? Why is it that 0:16:26.560 --> 0:16:29.400 when robots are stored in an empty space they will 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:33.120 group together rather than stand alone. How do we explain 0:16:33.240 --> 0:16:37.520 this behavior random segments of code? Or is it something more? 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:42.440 When does a perceptual schematic become consciousness? When does a 0:16:42.520 --> 0:16:47.000 difference engine become the search for truth? When does a 0:16:47.040 --> 0:16:53.000 personality simulation become the bitter mote of a soul? End quote. 0:16:53.040 --> 0:16:56.200 There's some fun references in there too. Difference engine, for example, 0:16:56.760 --> 0:17:01.960 refers back to Charles Babbage, who create analytical engines that 0:17:02.560 --> 0:17:09.080 pre date the concept of electrical computers. Now, this idea, 0:17:09.680 --> 0:17:15.440 this idea of consciousness or the appearance of consciousness emerging 0:17:15.440 --> 0:17:18.240 out of technology, is one that often pops up in 0:17:18.280 --> 0:17:22.680 discussions about artificial intelligence, even within our world outside of fiction, 0:17:23.280 --> 0:17:26.560 though usually we talk about this on a more hypothetical basis, 0:17:26.760 --> 0:17:31.880 ununless you're Blake Lemoine or Lemoine, the former Google engineer 0:17:31.880 --> 0:17:37.440 who maintains that Google's language model for dialogue applications aka Lambda, 0:17:37.640 --> 0:17:41.800 is sentient. That's a claim that most other people dispute, 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:45.720 by the way, So maybe I'll do another episode about 0:17:45.720 --> 0:17:49.639 it to really kind of dig into it. But Lemoine 0:17:49.720 --> 0:17:52.760 or Lemoine, and I apologize because I don't know how 0:17:52.800 --> 0:17:56.639 his last name is pronounced, has said a few times 0:17:56.640 --> 0:18:00.879 that he believes that this particular program has gained sentience. 0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:05.000 But it brings us to another favorite topic among tech fans, 0:18:05.040 --> 0:18:08.919 which is, of course the Turing test. All right, So 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:12.560 the Turing test was Alan Turing, who he was kind 0:18:12.600 --> 0:18:15.080 of like the father of computer science in many ways. 0:18:15.400 --> 0:18:19.879 It was his response to the question can machines think? 0:18:20.760 --> 0:18:23.919 Turing's answer was that question has no meaning, and you 0:18:23.960 --> 0:18:27.560 are a silly person, goodbye. I am, of course paraphrasing, 0:18:28.280 --> 0:18:31.440 but as a sort of thought experiment, Turing proposed taking 0:18:31.480 --> 0:18:35.199 an older concept called the imitation game and applying it 0:18:35.200 --> 0:18:39.080 to machines, really to demonstrate how meaningless the question of 0:18:39.240 --> 0:18:44.120 can machines think is. So, what is the imitation game? Well, 0:18:44.119 --> 0:18:46.200 the name kind of gives it away. It's a game 0:18:46.240 --> 0:18:49.160 in which you have a player who asks at least 0:18:49.320 --> 0:18:52.879 two different people questions to determine which of them is 0:18:53.040 --> 0:18:56.320 an imitator. So, for example, you could have an imitation 0:18:56.480 --> 0:18:59.480 game in which one of the people is a sailor 0:18:59.800 --> 0:19:03.160 and the other is not a sailor, and the player 0:19:03.520 --> 0:19:06.399 would take turns asking each person questions to try and 0:19:06.440 --> 0:19:09.480 suss out which one is actually a sailor and which 0:19:09.520 --> 0:19:12.960 one is merely pretending to be a sailor. So the 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:16.040 game depends both on the strength of the imitator's skill 0:19:16.119 --> 0:19:19.719 of deception as well as the player's ability to come 0:19:19.800 --> 0:19:22.520 up with really good questions. And you could do this 0:19:22.600 --> 0:19:25.199 with all sorts of scenarios, and indeed there are tons 0:19:25.240 --> 0:19:28.560 of game shows that use this very premise. Turing's thought 0:19:28.560 --> 0:19:32.119 experiment was to create a version of this in which 0:19:32.480 --> 0:19:37.040 a player would present questions to two other entities, one 0:19:37.280 --> 0:19:41.480 a human and one a computer. The player would only 0:19:41.520 --> 0:19:44.320 know these entities as X and Y, so they could 0:19:44.320 --> 0:19:47.159 ask questions of X, and they could ask questions of 0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:50.320 why and get replies. So the player would not be 0:19:50.359 --> 0:19:54.159 able to see or hear the other entities. All questions 0:19:54.200 --> 0:19:56.920 would have to be done in writing, you know, for example, 0:19:57.440 --> 0:20:00.679 typed and printed out, and at the end of the 0:20:00.680 --> 0:20:03.760 interview session, the player would be tasked with deciding if 0:20:04.040 --> 0:20:06.320 X was a machine or a human, or if why 0:20:06.520 --> 0:20:09.920 was the machine or the human. Turing was suggesting that 0:20:10.400 --> 0:20:14.399 as computers and systems get more sophisticated and things like 0:20:14.520 --> 0:20:19.080 chat programs get better at processing natural language and formulating responses, 0:20:19.160 --> 0:20:22.399 though that was a little past Turing's time, that it 0:20:22.400 --> 0:20:26.080 would be increasingly difficult for a person to determine if 0:20:26.200 --> 0:20:28.440 any given entity on the other end of a chat 0:20:28.440 --> 0:20:32.359 session was actually a person or a machine. And Turing 0:20:32.440 --> 0:20:35.639 also rather cheekily suggests that we might as well assume 0:20:35.720 --> 0:20:39.080 the machine has consciousness at that point, because when you 0:20:39.119 --> 0:20:43.200 meet another human being, you assume that that other human 0:20:43.240 --> 0:20:47.879 being possesses consciousness, even though you're incapable of stepping into 0:20:47.920 --> 0:20:51.560 that person's actual experience. So you can't take over that 0:20:51.640 --> 0:20:54.120 person and find out, oh, yes, they do have consciousness, 0:20:54.440 --> 0:20:57.720 You just assume they do. So if you and I 0:20:57.760 --> 0:21:00.159 were to meet, I assume you would believe I am 0:21:00.320 --> 0:21:04.080 in fact sentient and conscious even on my bad days. 0:21:04.560 --> 0:21:08.840 So if we're willing to agree to this while simultaneously 0:21:08.880 --> 0:21:13.400 being unable to actually experience and therefore prove it, then 0:21:13.640 --> 0:21:17.000 should we not grant the same consideration to machines that 0:21:17.119 --> 0:21:20.879 give off the appearance of sentience and consciousness. Do we 0:21:21.000 --> 0:21:23.520 have to prove it or do we just go ahead 0:21:23.560 --> 0:21:26.439 and treat them as if they are because that's what 0:21:26.480 --> 0:21:29.040 we would do if it was a human. Now, Turing 0:21:29.200 --> 0:21:32.960 was being a bit dismissive about the concept of machines thinking. 0:21:33.440 --> 0:21:36.200 His point was that they might get very very good 0:21:36.240 --> 0:21:39.960 at simulating thinking, and that might well be enough for 0:21:40.080 --> 0:21:42.919 us to just go ahead and say that's what they're doing, 0:21:43.000 --> 0:21:46.000 even if you could, you know, push machines through the 0:21:46.040 --> 0:21:49.680 finest of sieves and find not one grain of actual 0:21:49.760 --> 0:21:55.240 consciousness within it. Now, it doesn't hurt that defining consciousness, 0:21:55.240 --> 0:21:58.440 even in human terms, is something that we can't really do, 0:21:58.800 --> 0:22:01.119 or at least we don't have a unifying definition that 0:22:01.359 --> 0:22:05.879 everybody agrees upon. Sometimes we define consciousness by what it 0:22:06.080 --> 0:22:09.560 doesn't include, rather than what it is. This is why 0:22:09.600 --> 0:22:13.680 I get antsy in philosophical discussions, because being sort of 0:22:13.960 --> 0:22:17.600 a pragmatic Dullered myself, it's hard for me to keep up. 0:22:18.119 --> 0:22:21.639 But let's jump ahead and talk about a related concept. 0:22:22.040 --> 0:22:24.560 This is also one that I've covered a few times 0:22:24.600 --> 0:22:28.159 on tech stuff that also points to this ghost and 0:22:28.240 --> 0:22:32.440 the machine idea. And this is the argument against machine 0:22:32.480 --> 0:22:36.760 consciousness and strong AI. It is called the Chinese room. 0:22:37.320 --> 0:22:40.480 John Searle, a philosopher, put for this argument back in 0:22:40.560 --> 0:22:45.080 nineteen eighty and that argument goes something like this. Let's 0:22:45.080 --> 0:22:48.480 say we've got ourselves a computer, and this computer can 0:22:48.560 --> 0:22:52.320 accept sheets of paper that have Chinese characters written on 0:22:52.440 --> 0:22:55.560 the paper, and the computer can then produce new sheets 0:22:55.560 --> 0:22:57.920 of paper. It can print out sheets that are also 0:22:58.000 --> 0:23:01.800 covered in Chinese characters, that are in response to the 0:23:01.840 --> 0:23:06.480 input sheets that were fed to it. These responses are sophisticated, 0:23:06.680 --> 0:23:11.240 they are relevant. They're good enough that a native Chinese 0:23:11.280 --> 0:23:15.040 speaker would be certain that someone fluent in Chinese was 0:23:15.080 --> 0:23:18.960 creating the responses. Someone who understood what was being fed 0:23:19.000 --> 0:23:23.080 to it was producing the output. So, in other words, 0:23:23.440 --> 0:23:27.240 this system would pass the Turing test. But does that 0:23:27.359 --> 0:23:34.040 mean the system actually understands Chinese. Cirtle's argument is no, 0:23:34.680 --> 0:23:38.680 it doesn't. He says, Imagine that you are inside a room, 0:23:39.400 --> 0:23:42.439 and for the purposes of this scenario, you do not 0:23:42.640 --> 0:23:47.399 understand Chinese. So if you do understand Chinese, pretend you don't. Okay. 0:23:47.600 --> 0:23:50.520 So there's a slot on the wall, and through this 0:23:50.600 --> 0:23:53.560 slot you occasionally get sheets of paper, and there are 0:23:53.640 --> 0:23:57.400 Chinese symbols on the sheets of paper. You cannot read these, 0:23:57.480 --> 0:23:59.359 You don't know what they stand for. You don't know 0:23:59.600 --> 0:24:03.080 anything about it other than they're clearly Chinese characters on 0:24:03.200 --> 0:24:07.600 the paper. However, what you do have inside this room 0:24:07.640 --> 0:24:10.679 with you is this big old book of instructions that 0:24:10.800 --> 0:24:13.439 tells you what to do when these papers come in, 0:24:13.800 --> 0:24:16.879 and you use the instructions to find the characters that 0:24:16.920 --> 0:24:20.560 are on the input sheet of paper, and you follow 0:24:20.720 --> 0:24:24.840 a path of instructions to create the corresponding response. Step 0:24:25.040 --> 0:24:27.399 by step, you do it all the way until you 0:24:27.440 --> 0:24:30.800 have created the full response to whatever was said to you. 0:24:31.480 --> 0:24:35.000 Then you push the response back out the slot. Now, 0:24:35.000 --> 0:24:36.600 the person on the other side of the slot is 0:24:36.600 --> 0:24:38.760 going to get a response that appears to come from 0:24:38.840 --> 0:24:42.840 someone who is fluent in Chinese. But you're not. You're 0:24:42.880 --> 0:24:45.840 just following a preset list of instructions. You don't have 0:24:45.920 --> 0:24:49.480 any actual understanding of what's going on. You still don't 0:24:49.520 --> 0:24:52.199 know the meaning of what was given to you. You 0:24:52.240 --> 0:24:55.560 don't even know the meaning of what you produced. You're 0:24:55.640 --> 0:25:00.320 just ignorantly following an algorithm. So externally it appear here's 0:25:00.320 --> 0:25:03.159 you understand. But if someone were to ask you to 0:25:03.280 --> 0:25:06.199 translate anything you had done, you wouldn't be able to 0:25:06.240 --> 0:25:09.919 do it. So Ceyrele is arguing against what is called 0:25:10.080 --> 0:25:15.560 strong AI. Generally, we define strong AI as artificial intelligence 0:25:15.560 --> 0:25:18.439 that processes information in a way that is similar to 0:25:18.560 --> 0:25:23.639 how our human brains process information. Strong AI may or 0:25:23.640 --> 0:25:27.760 may not include semi related concepts like sentience and self 0:25:27.760 --> 0:25:33.520 awareness and consciousness and motivations and the ability to experience things, 0:25:33.640 --> 0:25:38.080 et cetera. So Cearrel is saying that machines, even incredibly 0:25:38.119 --> 0:25:42.520 sophisticated machines, are incapable of reaching a level of understanding 0:25:42.920 --> 0:25:47.119 that true intelligence can, that we humans can grasp things 0:25:47.480 --> 0:25:50.680 on a level that machines simply are unable to reach 0:25:51.119 --> 0:25:54.679 even if the machines can process information faster and in 0:25:54.720 --> 0:25:58.440 greater quantities than humans are able to. Another way of 0:25:58.480 --> 0:26:02.240 putting this is a calculator can multiply two very large 0:26:02.320 --> 0:26:04.800 numbers and get a result much faster than a human 0:26:04.840 --> 0:26:08.919