1 00:00:05,680 --> 00:00:07,560 Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My 2 00:00:07,640 --> 00:00:11,040 Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And it's Saturday. 3 00:00:11,080 --> 00:00:16,720 Speaker 1: It's volt time, folks. UH. This episode originally aired April one, UH, 4 00:00:16,760 --> 00:00:19,079 Speaker 1: and it is the It is part two of the 5 00:00:19,160 --> 00:00:21,480 Speaker 1: one that ran last Saturday. This is the Machine Lords 6 00:00:21,480 --> 00:00:28,040 Speaker 1: of Barnard sixty eight, Part two. Here it comes. Welcome 7 00:00:28,120 --> 00:00:37,760 Speaker 1: to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of My Heart Radio. Hey, 8 00:00:37,800 --> 00:00:39,600 Speaker 1: welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is 9 00:00:39,680 --> 00:00:42,040 Speaker 1: Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with 10 00:00:42,120 --> 00:00:46,080 Speaker 1: part two of our talk about post biological intelligence. Now, 11 00:00:46,120 --> 00:00:49,040 Speaker 1: in the last episode, we talked about, let's see, we 12 00:00:49,040 --> 00:00:52,839 Speaker 1: talked about some work by SETI researcher Seth show Stack, 13 00:00:52,920 --> 00:00:55,760 Speaker 1: and we talked about the philosopher Susan Schneider who had 14 00:00:55,800 --> 00:00:59,800 Speaker 1: both written about UH the idea of looking for signs 15 00:00:59,840 --> 00:01:03,560 Speaker 1: of alien intelligence elsewhere in the Milky Way, and UH 16 00:01:03,640 --> 00:01:06,560 Speaker 1: the the proposition that if we were to encounter such 17 00:01:06,600 --> 00:01:11,000 Speaker 1: an intelligence, it would probably be more likely the machine 18 00:01:11,680 --> 00:01:16,000 Speaker 1: descendants of a previous biological intelligence than it would be 19 00:01:16,160 --> 00:01:22,080 Speaker 1: biological entities themselves, that that overtime, organisms like us will 20 00:01:22,120 --> 00:01:24,640 Speaker 1: tend to sort of turn themselves into machines, or at 21 00:01:24,680 --> 00:01:28,679 Speaker 1: least create a techno culture that's dominated by machines, and 22 00:01:28,760 --> 00:01:31,880 Speaker 1: that these are the types of intelligences that we should 23 00:01:31,920 --> 00:01:35,520 Speaker 1: really be looking for and trying to predict in terms 24 00:01:35,520 --> 00:01:38,399 Speaker 1: of their characteristics and things like that. So we can 25 00:01:38,480 --> 00:01:40,840 Speaker 1: jump right back into the middle of this conversation where 26 00:01:40,840 --> 00:01:45,800 Speaker 1: we left off last time with talking about post biological intelligence. Now, 27 00:01:46,400 --> 00:01:49,000 Speaker 1: another big question here and and this will we'll go 28 00:01:49,040 --> 00:01:52,760 Speaker 1: back to Schneider is it is that the question of 29 00:01:52,960 --> 00:01:56,200 Speaker 1: would a machine culture like this if you encountered it, 30 00:01:56,840 --> 00:02:00,480 Speaker 1: would this machine artificial intelligence? Would it be conscious? And 31 00:02:00,920 --> 00:02:02,960 Speaker 1: what would that mean it would it make a difference? 32 00:02:02,960 --> 00:02:05,720 Speaker 1: Even Yeah, this is a really good question. The way 33 00:02:05,760 --> 00:02:08,440 Speaker 1: she puts it is would the processing of a silicon 34 00:02:08,520 --> 00:02:13,960 Speaker 1: based super intelligent system feel a certain way from the inside. Now, 35 00:02:13,960 --> 00:02:16,480 Speaker 1: I'm going to go into less detail on this argumented 36 00:02:16,600 --> 00:02:19,080 Speaker 1: than than I did on the other half of her argument, 37 00:02:19,120 --> 00:02:21,360 Speaker 1: but I did want to try to give a few highlights. 38 00:02:21,600 --> 00:02:25,800 Speaker 1: This question is inherently difficult to answer because according to 39 00:02:25,880 --> 00:02:28,000 Speaker 1: some philosophers, you know, some people would say that this 40 00:02:28,160 --> 00:02:31,239 Speaker 1: question is impossible to answer because there is no way 41 00:02:31,280 --> 00:02:34,880 Speaker 1: to test for consciousness beyond our first our own first 42 00:02:34,880 --> 00:02:37,359 Speaker 1: person experience. I mean, we can't even test to see 43 00:02:37,360 --> 00:02:39,760 Speaker 1: if other people are conscious. We just assume they are. 44 00:02:40,360 --> 00:02:42,560 Speaker 1: It seems like they are, they claim to be, and 45 00:02:42,600 --> 00:02:45,320 Speaker 1: there's no reason to assume they're not. But of course 46 00:02:45,360 --> 00:02:48,280 Speaker 1: you have ideas like the philosopher David Chalmers. You know, 47 00:02:48,320 --> 00:02:51,400 Speaker 1: he famously framed this idea of the easy problems versus 48 00:02:51,400 --> 00:02:55,320 Speaker 1: the hard problems of consciousness, and so the easy problems 49 00:02:55,360 --> 00:02:58,120 Speaker 1: that they're not actually easy, but they are, they're in 50 00:02:58,160 --> 00:03:02,160 Speaker 1: principle solvable. There're things like what parts of the brain 51 00:03:02,280 --> 00:03:05,840 Speaker 1: are necessary in order to generate conscious experience, Like you could, 52 00:03:06,120 --> 00:03:08,040 Speaker 1: you know, you could do research on that and have 53 00:03:08,160 --> 00:03:10,480 Speaker 1: people report back when different parts of the brain are 54 00:03:10,520 --> 00:03:12,640 Speaker 1: disabled or something. You know, you can figure out things 55 00:03:12,639 --> 00:03:15,880 Speaker 1: like that, but it's much more difficult to or Chalmers 56 00:03:15,880 --> 00:03:18,640 Speaker 1: would argue, ultimately impossible to get to the bottom of 57 00:03:18,639 --> 00:03:22,480 Speaker 1: the question why does all this information processing in the 58 00:03:22,560 --> 00:03:26,639 Speaker 1: human brain under certain conditions have a felt quality to it? 59 00:03:26,760 --> 00:03:30,240 Speaker 1: Like why is their consciousness in the first place? And 60 00:03:30,320 --> 00:03:33,080 Speaker 1: if we do not know or possibly even cannot know 61 00:03:33,240 --> 00:03:36,360 Speaker 1: why we possess a felt subjective experience, how could we 62 00:03:36,400 --> 00:03:39,880 Speaker 1: ever reason backwards to know if alien machines would also 63 00:03:39,960 --> 00:03:43,640 Speaker 1: possess it. Now, Schneider responds to all this thinking, and 64 00:03:43,880 --> 00:03:47,560 Speaker 1: I'm oversimplifying here, but her main point is that the 65 00:03:47,600 --> 00:03:50,640 Speaker 1: activity of the brain is, according to her argument, primarily 66 00:03:50,720 --> 00:03:55,320 Speaker 1: computational and in the absence of compelling evidence for what 67 00:03:55,360 --> 00:03:59,600 Speaker 1: she calls biological naturalism, and that's the idea that consciousness 68 00:03:59,760 --> 00:04:03,560 Speaker 1: is or is likely to be unique to biological, carbon 69 00:04:03,600 --> 00:04:07,920 Speaker 1: based organisms. Daniel Dennett ridicules this point of view by 70 00:04:07,960 --> 00:04:10,160 Speaker 1: calling it the belief that the brain possesses what he 71 00:04:10,160 --> 00:04:13,400 Speaker 1: calls wonder tissue. You know that there's just something in 72 00:04:13,440 --> 00:04:17,120 Speaker 1: the brain that, like magic, allows it to generate consciousness 73 00:04:17,120 --> 00:04:21,200 Speaker 1: while other types of things can't generate consciousness. I don't 74 00:04:21,240 --> 00:04:23,320 Speaker 1: know the answer to this question whether things other than 75 00:04:23,400 --> 00:04:27,240 Speaker 1: brains can or cannot generate consciousness. It uh, I'm sort 76 00:04:27,240 --> 00:04:30,480 Speaker 1: of skeptical of both sides of the argument. But but anyway, 77 00:04:30,520 --> 00:04:35,040 Speaker 1: Schneider argues that we should conclude by analogy that other 78 00:04:35,120 --> 00:04:38,760 Speaker 1: computational agents, because our brains are computational agents and they 79 00:04:38,800 --> 00:04:43,160 Speaker 1: generate consciousness, that other computational agents are also capable of 80 00:04:43,160 --> 00:04:47,640 Speaker 1: possessing consciousness unless there's some kind of evidence that biological 81 00:04:47,760 --> 00:04:50,880 Speaker 1: naturalism is is necessarily true, and she says there's not, 82 00:04:51,120 --> 00:04:53,560 Speaker 1: And I agree that there is not evidence of that. 83 00:04:53,920 --> 00:04:55,800 Speaker 1: You know What's interesting about the way that you just 84 00:04:55,839 --> 00:04:58,320 Speaker 1: lay this out, though I can easily imagine a situation 85 00:04:58,560 --> 00:05:02,160 Speaker 1: where it's an advant and stay, I is forced to, uh, 86 00:05:02,200 --> 00:05:05,400 Speaker 1: sort of ponder the situation, Well, is having a conscious 87 00:05:05,560 --> 00:05:09,520 Speaker 1: um this conscious experience? Is it important? Well, let's let 88 00:05:09,520 --> 00:05:12,400 Speaker 1: me create uh, like a programming or a subset of 89 00:05:12,440 --> 00:05:16,000 Speaker 1: myself that has at least as close of an approximation 90 00:05:16,520 --> 00:05:19,480 Speaker 1: of consciousness as as as as it is understood at 91 00:05:19,520 --> 00:05:24,280 Speaker 1: that time in order to evaluate you know, um, so 92 00:05:24,320 --> 00:05:26,919 Speaker 1: then it perhaps has sort of it's its main mind, 93 00:05:27,000 --> 00:05:29,640 Speaker 1: but then it has sort of a subset of quote 94 00:05:29,720 --> 00:05:34,520 Speaker 1: unquote conscious minds just in case it is important. Yeah, obviously, 95 00:05:34,560 --> 00:05:36,520 Speaker 1: I mean huge question, like how would it know how 96 00:05:36,560 --> 00:05:39,440 Speaker 1: to do that? But assuming could that, Yeah, that's really 97 00:05:39,440 --> 00:05:43,080 Speaker 1: funny that like it could try to iterate consciousness in 98 00:05:43,080 --> 00:05:45,600 Speaker 1: in an experimental way to see if to see if 99 00:05:45,640 --> 00:05:48,120 Speaker 1: it makes a difference, because that's another big thing, like 100 00:05:48,160 --> 00:05:50,760 Speaker 1: you know, the biological question about consciousness. We at least 101 00:05:50,760 --> 00:05:53,160 Speaker 1: know that biological brains can be conscious. We don't know 102 00:05:53,200 --> 00:05:56,280 Speaker 1: if computers can be or not. But since biological brains 103 00:05:56,320 --> 00:06:01,040 Speaker 1: are conscious, is that an adaptive evolutionary trait? Does consciousness 104 00:06:01,279 --> 00:06:05,479 Speaker 1: do something? Or or could you have a an animal 105 00:06:05,640 --> 00:06:10,120 Speaker 1: that is absolutely functionally identical to a human but not conscious. 106 00:06:10,160 --> 00:06:12,719 Speaker 1: This is actually the concept of a philosophical zombie or 107 00:06:12,720 --> 00:06:16,760 Speaker 1: a pe zombie, a being that is that is indistinguishable 108 00:06:16,839 --> 00:06:20,600 Speaker 1: from a normal human except it has no inner experience. Right, 109 00:06:21,160 --> 00:06:24,160 Speaker 1: So in like this scenario where the super AI creates 110 00:06:24,200 --> 00:06:28,120 Speaker 1: like a counsel of quote unquote conscious iterations of itself, 111 00:06:28,320 --> 00:06:31,200 Speaker 1: like maybe they're just faking consciousness, how would it know? Yeah, 112 00:06:31,360 --> 00:06:33,000 Speaker 1: and then how would it know? How would we know? 113 00:06:33,880 --> 00:06:36,080 Speaker 1: And yeah again if you're and then if you're dealing 114 00:06:36,120 --> 00:06:38,680 Speaker 1: with an AI, like suddenly we make contact with an 115 00:06:38,680 --> 00:06:42,760 Speaker 1: AI from another world? Um, is it important that it 116 00:06:42,920 --> 00:06:45,039 Speaker 1: be conscious or not conscious? Like? There are lots of 117 00:06:45,040 --> 00:06:48,160 Speaker 1: things that are important and even beneficial that are not conscious, 118 00:06:48,440 --> 00:06:51,080 Speaker 1: like the you know, the Bill of Rights is not 119 00:06:51,160 --> 00:06:55,360 Speaker 1: a conscious entity. Um, but you know, I think most 120 00:06:55,360 --> 00:06:57,560 Speaker 1: would argue that it is. It is important. It does 121 00:06:57,600 --> 00:07:01,480 Speaker 1: good things. You could argue that it is only important 122 00:07:01,600 --> 00:07:05,080 Speaker 1: in that it has effects on conscious on things that 123 00:07:05,080 --> 00:07:08,920 Speaker 1: are conscious like, in a universe where there was nothing 124 00:07:09,040 --> 00:07:11,640 Speaker 1: that was conscious, would the Bill of Rights be useful? 125 00:07:12,680 --> 00:07:13,960 Speaker 1: But I don't know. I mean, I guess there are 126 00:07:13,960 --> 00:07:16,000 Speaker 1: some theories of value that would that would say like, yeah, 127 00:07:16,000 --> 00:07:18,280 Speaker 1: I think things could still be of value even if 128 00:07:18,280 --> 00:07:22,280 Speaker 1: they weren't conscious, right, uh yeah. And then again it 129 00:07:22,360 --> 00:07:24,520 Speaker 1: just it also kind of becomes pointless because once you're 130 00:07:24,520 --> 00:07:27,400 Speaker 1: talking to that AI, Um, yeah, well, what does what 131 00:07:27,440 --> 00:07:29,080 Speaker 1: does it mean if it's conscious or not? Like, how 132 00:07:29,080 --> 00:07:32,040 Speaker 1: does that change the way you interact with it? Um? 133 00:07:32,120 --> 00:07:35,040 Speaker 1: Unless you're you know, actively saying hey, stop, think about 134 00:07:35,080 --> 00:07:37,640 Speaker 1: what you're doing, think about what you're thinking about. Uh. 135 00:07:37,800 --> 00:07:39,800 Speaker 1: I don't know. So I don't know what to think 136 00:07:39,800 --> 00:07:42,920 Speaker 1: about the consciousness question for for alien machines. I mean, 137 00:07:43,000 --> 00:07:46,280 Speaker 1: I think I think Schneider makes the best argument that 138 00:07:46,320 --> 00:07:48,360 Speaker 1: I could imagine for it, But I still don't know 139 00:07:48,400 --> 00:07:50,680 Speaker 1: if I'm convinced, just because this whole realm to me 140 00:07:50,800 --> 00:07:54,920 Speaker 1: just seems so uncertain. Um. But but then she goes 141 00:07:54,960 --> 00:07:56,360 Speaker 1: on to some other things that I think are some 142 00:07:56,440 --> 00:08:00,640 Speaker 1: really interesting ideas. Actually, she talks about what would be 143 00:08:00,800 --> 00:08:06,080 Speaker 1: the predictable characteristics of super intelligent machines, the minds we 144 00:08:06,120 --> 00:08:09,000 Speaker 1: would encounter out there if we did encounter them. Well, 145 00:08:09,040 --> 00:08:10,800 Speaker 1: she admits that there's not a lot we can know, 146 00:08:11,000 --> 00:08:13,200 Speaker 1: at least certainly not that much that we can say 147 00:08:13,200 --> 00:08:15,880 Speaker 1: with with too much confidence, But we can make some 148 00:08:16,120 --> 00:08:20,480 Speaker 1: educated guesses about the broad strokes of alien intelligence. And 149 00:08:20,560 --> 00:08:23,280 Speaker 1: to do this she cites the work of again philosopher 150 00:08:23,320 --> 00:08:26,240 Speaker 1: Nick Bostrom, who is famous for writing about AI risks, 151 00:08:26,320 --> 00:08:29,160 Speaker 1: and I believe he actually coined the term super intelligence, 152 00:08:29,200 --> 00:08:32,880 Speaker 1: though it could be wrong about that, but Bostrom says, yes, 153 00:08:32,960 --> 00:08:35,880 Speaker 1: it is hard to predict the goals of a future AI. 154 00:08:36,040 --> 00:08:39,000 Speaker 1: You know, alien intelligence is very difficult to understand. But 155 00:08:39,800 --> 00:08:43,640 Speaker 1: he identifies what he thinks are several intellectual tendencies that 156 00:08:43,679 --> 00:08:47,160 Speaker 1: are likely to be found in any super intelligent AI, 157 00:08:47,200 --> 00:08:48,920 Speaker 1: and they're likely to be found in any of them 158 00:08:48,920 --> 00:08:52,000 Speaker 1: because he says, these traits are useful in attaining almost 159 00:08:52,080 --> 00:08:56,559 Speaker 1: any goal. And so these goals he identifies our resource 160 00:08:56,600 --> 00:09:00,520 Speaker 1: acquisition makes sense. You need resources in ER to like 161 00:09:00,640 --> 00:09:05,000 Speaker 1: keep your processes going technological perfection, right, you want yourself 162 00:09:05,040 --> 00:09:09,440 Speaker 1: to work efficiently. Cognitive enhancement, you always want to be smarter. 163 00:09:09,880 --> 00:09:13,120 Speaker 1: Self preservation, you want to be able to keep doing things. 164 00:09:13,640 --> 00:09:18,360 Speaker 1: And then what he calls goal content integrity, and Schneider 165 00:09:18,400 --> 00:09:21,760 Speaker 1: summarizes that by saying, I e. That a super intelligent 166 00:09:21,880 --> 00:09:27,240 Speaker 1: being's future self will pursue and attain those same goals. Uh. 167 00:09:27,240 --> 00:09:29,880 Speaker 1: And this one was really interesting to me actually thinking 168 00:09:29,880 --> 00:09:33,120 Speaker 1: about the idea that a machine would need to try 169 00:09:33,160 --> 00:09:38,160 Speaker 1: to make sure that as it iterates to to improve itself, 170 00:09:38,640 --> 00:09:41,240 Speaker 1: it doesn't change what it was trying to do in 171 00:09:41,240 --> 00:09:46,120 Speaker 1: the first place. Sort of a prime directive sort of situation, right, Yeah, 172 00:09:46,600 --> 00:09:48,560 Speaker 1: Or to come back to the culture, the idea that like, 173 00:09:48,640 --> 00:09:52,640 Speaker 1: if you're created, if your original design is to aid 174 00:09:52,800 --> 00:09:55,720 Speaker 1: humans and make their life easier, than you keep doing 175 00:09:55,720 --> 00:09:59,360 Speaker 1: that even if you are ultimately the calling all the 176 00:09:59,360 --> 00:10:01,439 Speaker 1: shots now and you know, are in charge of all 177 00:10:01,480 --> 00:10:05,440 Speaker 1: the interactions with other civilizations, etcetera. Yeah, And that that 178 00:10:05,480 --> 00:10:08,439 Speaker 1: actually comes into the next thing she says about Bostrom's 179 00:10:08,480 --> 00:10:12,640 Speaker 1: ideas on on these super intelligence is uh. She she writes, quote, 180 00:10:12,840 --> 00:10:17,760 Speaker 1: he underscores that self preservation can involve group or individual preservation, 181 00:10:18,120 --> 00:10:20,679 Speaker 1: and that it may play second fiddle to the preservation 182 00:10:20,760 --> 00:10:24,520 Speaker 1: of the species the AI was designed to serve. So 183 00:10:24,559 --> 00:10:26,360 Speaker 1: it could be that these AI s, if they ever 184 00:10:26,400 --> 00:10:28,320 Speaker 1: do come to exist, would Yeah, that they would be 185 00:10:28,320 --> 00:10:33,040 Speaker 1: the custodians or caretakers, thinking mainly about the preservation of 186 00:10:33,080 --> 00:10:35,520 Speaker 1: the species that created them, and then when they come 187 00:10:35,559 --> 00:10:40,160 Speaker 1: to us, they ultimately just want to serve man. Right. 188 00:10:40,920 --> 00:10:43,559 Speaker 1: But then, one last thing that Schneider argues that I 189 00:10:43,800 --> 00:10:45,880 Speaker 1: thought would be interesting to mention is uh, and I 190 00:10:45,880 --> 00:10:48,480 Speaker 1: think I said this earlier. But she also argues that 191 00:10:48,800 --> 00:10:52,040 Speaker 1: perhaps the most common form of super intelligence we could 192 00:10:52,080 --> 00:10:55,800 Speaker 1: expect to encounter would be what she calls biologically inspired 193 00:10:55,880 --> 00:11:00,280 Speaker 1: super intelligent aliens, and that if this argument is corre act, 194 00:11:00,360 --> 00:11:04,680 Speaker 1: this could also tell us some things about intellectual characteristics 195 00:11:04,720 --> 00:11:08,559 Speaker 1: that we would expect to find in these super intelligences. So, 196 00:11:08,600 --> 00:11:11,679 Speaker 1: to read from Schneider's chapter, she says, uh, it may 197 00:11:11,760 --> 00:11:15,360 Speaker 1: turn out that of all super intelligent ai s, biologically 198 00:11:15,360 --> 00:11:19,600 Speaker 1: inspired super intelligent ais, they're the most resemblance to each other. 199 00:11:19,960 --> 00:11:24,439 Speaker 1: In other words, visas maybe the most cohesive subgroup because 200 00:11:24,480 --> 00:11:27,280 Speaker 1: the other members are so different from each other. And 201 00:11:27,320 --> 00:11:30,480 Speaker 1: there she's talking about members of the galactic community. Basically, 202 00:11:30,960 --> 00:11:33,600 Speaker 1: that the biologically inspired ones would have the most in 203 00:11:33,640 --> 00:11:36,960 Speaker 1: common with each other. So what kinds of things could 204 00:11:36,960 --> 00:11:39,480 Speaker 1: they have in common? She says, noticed that visas have 205 00:11:39,559 --> 00:11:42,840 Speaker 1: two features that may give rise to common cognitive capacities 206 00:11:42,880 --> 00:11:47,160 Speaker 1: and goals. One, visas are descended from creatures that had 207 00:11:47,240 --> 00:11:53,800 Speaker 1: motivations like find food, avoid injury, and predators, reproduce, cooperate, compete, 208 00:11:53,960 --> 00:11:57,480 Speaker 1: and so on. And then second, she says, the life 209 00:11:57,520 --> 00:12:00,200 Speaker 1: forms that visas are modeled from have of all to 210 00:12:00,240 --> 00:12:04,280 Speaker 1: deal with biological constraints like slow processing speed and the 211 00:12:04,320 --> 00:12:08,760 Speaker 1: spatial limitations of embodiment. So, she says, could these two 212 00:12:08,760 --> 00:12:12,440 Speaker 1: principles one and two yield traits common to members of 213 00:12:12,480 --> 00:12:16,920 Speaker 1: many super intelligent alien civilizations? I suspect so, and she 214 00:12:17,000 --> 00:12:18,880 Speaker 1: gives a bunch of examples, but I mean, a very 215 00:12:18,920 --> 00:12:21,560 Speaker 1: simple and easy to grasp one would be that since 216 00:12:21,640 --> 00:12:27,480 Speaker 1: intelligent biological life is primarily concerned with its biological imperatives, 217 00:12:27,480 --> 00:12:31,080 Speaker 1: mainly survival and reproduction, she says, it is more likely 218 00:12:31,080 --> 00:12:34,640 Speaker 1: that beisas would have final goals involving their own survival 219 00:12:34,679 --> 00:12:37,839 Speaker 1: and reproduction, or at least the survival and reproduction of 220 00:12:37,880 --> 00:12:41,199 Speaker 1: the members of their society. And I was just thinking 221 00:12:41,240 --> 00:12:44,680 Speaker 1: this can be extrapolated to other ideas. For example, why 222 00:12:44,679 --> 00:12:48,800 Speaker 1: wouldn't a super intelligent AI just just reprogram itself until 223 00:12:48,840 --> 00:12:52,480 Speaker 1: it is no longer anything like its biological ancestors. So 224 00:12:52,960 --> 00:12:56,640 Speaker 1: is it still really reproducing the original version of itself 225 00:12:56,679 --> 00:12:59,560 Speaker 1: at all? Well, if you think back to Bostrom's idea 226 00:12:59,720 --> 00:13:03,520 Speaker 1: of of goal content integrity, I wonder if this could 227 00:13:03,559 --> 00:13:06,720 Speaker 1: in a way entail a kind of halting of the 228 00:13:06,800 --> 00:13:09,880 Speaker 1: evolutionary process of life that has gone on throughout all 229 00:13:09,920 --> 00:13:13,040 Speaker 1: of history. Because suddenly, once you reach this level of intelligence, 230 00:13:13,600 --> 00:13:17,800 Speaker 1: a machine iterating itself may just want to preserve the 231 00:13:17,880 --> 00:13:21,079 Speaker 1: idea that it is still its original self. That's an 232 00:13:21,120 --> 00:13:25,079 Speaker 1: inherently motivating goal for it, and thus it would prevent 233 00:13:25,200 --> 00:13:27,800 Speaker 1: changes to itself that would make it feel too different 234 00:13:27,920 --> 00:13:31,480 Speaker 1: from what it once was. Huh. You know, it reminds 235 00:13:31,520 --> 00:13:33,080 Speaker 1: me of like when you when you hear a really 236 00:13:33,080 --> 00:13:35,319 Speaker 1: great song for the first time, or you you start 237 00:13:35,320 --> 00:13:37,800 Speaker 1: playing a video game and it really grabs you, or 238 00:13:38,040 --> 00:13:40,400 Speaker 1: you know, you get super into you know, some fandom 239 00:13:40,480 --> 00:13:43,080 Speaker 1: or another. There's, at least for me, there's sometimes that 240 00:13:43,160 --> 00:13:45,880 Speaker 1: point where you realize, like, wow, this is really fulfilling 241 00:13:45,920 --> 00:13:48,920 Speaker 1: for me right now, and the day will come when 242 00:13:48,920 --> 00:13:51,360 Speaker 1: it won't be, Like as much as I enjoy this 243 00:13:51,440 --> 00:13:53,760 Speaker 1: game or this book or this song or whatever it is, 244 00:13:53,920 --> 00:13:55,880 Speaker 1: there will come a day when I will set it aside, 245 00:13:56,280 --> 00:13:59,000 Speaker 1: because and I will, there'll be something else I'm into. 246 00:13:59,280 --> 00:14:02,240 Speaker 1: So I guess the question is, it's like if if 247 00:14:02,320 --> 00:14:06,000 Speaker 1: we or this machine that we're imagining here, if it 248 00:14:06,040 --> 00:14:09,000 Speaker 1: could decide no, I will always be into this album. 249 00:14:09,200 --> 00:14:11,680 Speaker 1: This album is great and it shall always be that way. 250 00:14:11,880 --> 00:14:13,920 Speaker 1: Would it do that? Would it set itself in time, 251 00:14:14,320 --> 00:14:16,280 Speaker 1: or would it like assume that it would always be 252 00:14:16,360 --> 00:14:18,120 Speaker 1: in this and just it kind of gets back to 253 00:14:18,160 --> 00:14:20,640 Speaker 1: that vampire scenario you've brought up before. You know, you 254 00:14:20,680 --> 00:14:23,240 Speaker 1: don't know what you're going to want when you become 255 00:14:23,280 --> 00:14:25,640 Speaker 1: the vampire, and it's hard to imagine what your mindset 256 00:14:25,720 --> 00:14:28,040 Speaker 1: is when you reach that point. Yeah, yeah, that's a 257 00:14:28,080 --> 00:14:31,720 Speaker 1: really good point. Certainly applies to becoming some kind of 258 00:14:31,760 --> 00:14:34,480 Speaker 1: machine or merging with it, or remodeling yourself if you 259 00:14:34,520 --> 00:14:43,160 Speaker 1: already are machine than now. Schneider makes a number of 260 00:14:43,160 --> 00:14:47,400 Speaker 1: other arguments about the types of post biological intelligences that 261 00:14:47,440 --> 00:14:50,040 Speaker 1: we would be likely to encounter again, derived from the 262 00:14:50,080 --> 00:14:54,720 Speaker 1: idea that there is some kind of ancestral biological inspiration 263 00:14:54,880 --> 00:14:59,560 Speaker 1: behind these hypothetical superintelligences. And the thing she zeroes in 264 00:14:59,640 --> 00:15:05,040 Speaker 1: on is that some limitations from original biological organisms are 265 00:15:05,080 --> 00:15:09,040 Speaker 1: things that aies would probably want to engineer out of themselves. 266 00:15:09,120 --> 00:15:11,120 Speaker 1: Right now, you can think of plenty of things about 267 00:15:11,160 --> 00:15:13,640 Speaker 1: your brain that, if you know, your brain were to 268 00:15:13,720 --> 00:15:17,160 Speaker 1: evolve into some kind of computer that was always perfecting itself, 269 00:15:17,200 --> 00:15:19,600 Speaker 1: it might want to leave by the wayside over time. 270 00:15:20,160 --> 00:15:22,600 Speaker 1: You know, maybe some of your obsessions and anxieties and 271 00:15:22,600 --> 00:15:25,200 Speaker 1: stuff like that. But what's left if you take all 272 00:15:25,200 --> 00:15:28,520 Speaker 1: that out? Right? Yeah, that's a good point. But then 273 00:15:28,560 --> 00:15:32,560 Speaker 1: she also says that there are quote cognitive capacities that 274 00:15:32,640 --> 00:15:36,600 Speaker 1: sophisticated forms of biological intelligence are likely to have and 275 00:15:36,720 --> 00:15:40,040 Speaker 1: which enable the super intelligence to carry out its final 276 00:15:40,120 --> 00:15:43,080 Speaker 1: and instrumental goals. We could also look for traits that 277 00:15:43,120 --> 00:15:46,080 Speaker 1: are not likely to be engineered out, as they do 278 00:15:46,160 --> 00:15:49,640 Speaker 1: not detract the visa from its goals. So there are 279 00:15:49,680 --> 00:15:53,640 Speaker 1: some traits of biological intelligence that probably have inherent advantages. 280 00:15:53,680 --> 00:15:56,120 Speaker 1: There are just some ways that brains work really good, 281 00:15:56,160 --> 00:15:58,840 Speaker 1: and it would want to replicate that and just refine 282 00:15:58,880 --> 00:16:01,640 Speaker 1: it across time. And then there are other traits of 283 00:16:01,760 --> 00:16:05,680 Speaker 1: biological intelligences that might not have clear advantages, but they 284 00:16:05,680 --> 00:16:08,800 Speaker 1: at least wouldn't detract from the attainment of goals. So 285 00:16:08,960 --> 00:16:11,640 Speaker 1: just you know, why why not keep them around? Yeah, 286 00:16:11,680 --> 00:16:15,440 Speaker 1: sort of the lukewarm stuff that's not detrimental to the 287 00:16:15,440 --> 00:16:17,560 Speaker 1: their goals, but all that doesn't maybe help it all 288 00:16:17,600 --> 00:16:21,760 Speaker 1: that much. That isn't isn't using a lot of energy, etcetera. Right, So, 289 00:16:21,880 --> 00:16:26,320 Speaker 1: to get into Schneider's explicit predictions for biologically inspired superintelligence 290 00:16:26,400 --> 00:16:28,000 Speaker 1: is h the first one. I'm not going to get 291 00:16:28,200 --> 00:16:30,560 Speaker 1: deep into because it's a little dry, But this is 292 00:16:30,800 --> 00:16:33,600 Speaker 1: a fair point, I guess. She says, learning about the 293 00:16:33,640 --> 00:16:37,320 Speaker 1: computational structure of the brain of the species that created 294 00:16:37,360 --> 00:16:42,520 Speaker 1: the visa can provide insight into the visas thinking patterns. Okay, 295 00:16:42,560 --> 00:16:46,320 Speaker 1: so basically, you can start to gain some insights into 296 00:16:46,360 --> 00:16:50,520 Speaker 1: the computational structure of an animal's brain or or nervous 297 00:16:50,560 --> 00:16:54,520 Speaker 1: system more broadly, by studying the brain's connect home. A 298 00:16:54,520 --> 00:16:58,760 Speaker 1: connect home is a map of the connections between neurons, which, 299 00:16:58,800 --> 00:17:02,000 Speaker 1: at least in theory, would help you understand which cells 300 00:17:02,040 --> 00:17:04,760 Speaker 1: and structures in the brain or the nervous system broadly 301 00:17:05,240 --> 00:17:09,120 Speaker 1: share information with which others in order to better understand 302 00:17:09,200 --> 00:17:12,560 Speaker 1: how information is processed as a whole. Yeah, I mean 303 00:17:12,560 --> 00:17:14,880 Speaker 1: this makes me think, for instance, like when we think 304 00:17:14,880 --> 00:17:18,920 Speaker 1: of an artificial intelligence. We are often loosely thinking of 305 00:17:18,960 --> 00:17:21,640 Speaker 1: like that, like that single entity. But what have you had? 306 00:17:21,880 --> 00:17:23,480 Speaker 1: What have you had an alien life form that had 307 00:17:23,520 --> 00:17:27,440 Speaker 1: sort of a pronounced bicameral mind situation going on, where 308 00:17:27,480 --> 00:17:32,320 Speaker 1: like the actual organic organism had uh like two houses 309 00:17:32,480 --> 00:17:35,400 Speaker 1: of thought going on that kind of communicate with each other, 310 00:17:35,640 --> 00:17:37,919 Speaker 1: and therefore that ends up being reflected in the AI 311 00:17:38,000 --> 00:17:40,800 Speaker 1: they create. Oh that's very interesting. That will actually come 312 00:17:40,840 --> 00:17:43,119 Speaker 1: back to a question I have about one of the 313 00:17:43,119 --> 00:17:45,760 Speaker 1: points she makes later on. But again, just the point 314 00:17:45,840 --> 00:17:48,360 Speaker 1: she's making here is that if you can look at 315 00:17:48,400 --> 00:17:52,600 Speaker 1: the physical structure of the original ancestral organism that the 316 00:17:52,640 --> 00:17:56,640 Speaker 1: intelligence is evolved from, that can help you understand something 317 00:17:56,680 --> 00:18:01,440 Speaker 1: about how the intelligence of its machine descend works. Quote. 318 00:18:01,440 --> 00:18:03,600 Speaker 1: While it is likely that a given visa will not 319 00:18:03,720 --> 00:18:06,119 Speaker 1: have the same kind of connectome as the members of 320 00:18:06,119 --> 00:18:10,360 Speaker 1: the original species, some of the functional and structural connections 321 00:18:10,400 --> 00:18:13,960 Speaker 1: may be retained, and interesting departures from the originals may 322 00:18:13,960 --> 00:18:16,679 Speaker 1: be found. Now, after that, she brings up a second 323 00:18:16,680 --> 00:18:20,080 Speaker 1: point that I thought was a very interesting prediction. She writes, 324 00:18:20,200 --> 00:18:26,040 Speaker 1: quote visas may have viewpoint invariant representations. Now what does 325 00:18:26,080 --> 00:18:28,119 Speaker 1: that mean? Well, an easy way to think about it 326 00:18:28,200 --> 00:18:31,760 Speaker 1: is this. If you're watching a movie and the camera 327 00:18:31,920 --> 00:18:34,879 Speaker 1: suddenly cuts to a different angle in the middle of 328 00:18:34,880 --> 00:18:37,040 Speaker 1: a scene, but it's still the same scene going on. 329 00:18:37,760 --> 00:18:41,080 Speaker 1: How is it that you still understand you're watching a 330 00:18:41,160 --> 00:18:45,720 Speaker 1: continuation of the same action as before. Everything looks completely different, 331 00:18:45,760 --> 00:18:48,520 Speaker 1: but you understand that these are the same actors playing 332 00:18:48,560 --> 00:18:52,040 Speaker 1: the same characters in the same room, even though it 333 00:18:52,119 --> 00:18:54,919 Speaker 1: looks totally different. This is one of the ways that 334 00:18:55,080 --> 00:19:00,199 Speaker 1: human intelligence still drastically outperforms artificial intelligence on Earth. You know, 335 00:19:00,280 --> 00:19:03,280 Speaker 1: humans can look at an object. It's a VHS tape 336 00:19:03,280 --> 00:19:05,880 Speaker 1: of the Star Wars Holiday special, and you can look 337 00:19:05,920 --> 00:19:08,760 Speaker 1: at it from completely different angles. Maybe the front cover 338 00:19:08,840 --> 00:19:11,400 Speaker 1: of the box looks completely different than the back cover 339 00:19:11,480 --> 00:19:13,719 Speaker 1: of the box, but you turn it around and you 340 00:19:13,760 --> 00:19:17,520 Speaker 1: still understand that you're looking at the same object. Humans 341 00:19:17,520 --> 00:19:21,119 Speaker 1: are able to form mental representations of objects in the 342 00:19:21,119 --> 00:19:25,359 Speaker 1: world that can be isolated and recognized and manipulated within 343 00:19:25,400 --> 00:19:29,080 Speaker 1: the mind's eye, and we humans are not typically going 344 00:19:29,119 --> 00:19:32,359 Speaker 1: to be confused about what we're looking at because we 345 00:19:32,440 --> 00:19:35,200 Speaker 1: took a step to the side and change the angle 346 00:19:35,240 --> 00:19:38,639 Speaker 1: of observation, even though the light reflecting off of the 347 00:19:38,680 --> 00:19:41,879 Speaker 1: object and hitting our eyes will produce a very different 348 00:19:41,920 --> 00:19:45,840 Speaker 1: pattern on the retina. We somehow still use our intelligence 349 00:19:45,920 --> 00:19:48,760 Speaker 1: to know that we're still looking at the same object 350 00:19:48,840 --> 00:19:51,960 Speaker 1: or scene. And this is a much much harder task 351 00:19:52,040 --> 00:19:54,440 Speaker 1: for a computer. I mean, ask anybody who's been involved 352 00:19:54,440 --> 00:19:59,320 Speaker 1: in visual object recognition. It's an incredibly difficult task for AI. 353 00:19:59,400 --> 00:20:01,800 Speaker 1: And this is one of the many amazing, fast and 354 00:20:01,920 --> 00:20:05,600 Speaker 1: loose intellectual feats that humans do all the time, so 355 00:20:05,680 --> 00:20:08,959 Speaker 1: often that we we rarely appreciate how amazing our brains 356 00:20:09,000 --> 00:20:12,320 Speaker 1: are in this regard. Another example from a recent episode 357 00:20:12,359 --> 00:20:15,520 Speaker 1: was you know, recalling the Moses Ilusion episode, we talked 358 00:20:15,520 --> 00:20:18,280 Speaker 1: about how good we are at getting the gist of 359 00:20:18,320 --> 00:20:21,800 Speaker 1: a statement or a question. Even if major pieces of 360 00:20:21,840 --> 00:20:24,679 Speaker 1: information within the sentence are wrong and should be throwing 361 00:20:24,720 --> 00:20:27,680 Speaker 1: you off in completely the wrong direction, you still are 362 00:20:27,720 --> 00:20:30,920 Speaker 1: able to very quickly get what the person was probably 363 00:20:30,960 --> 00:20:34,640 Speaker 1: intending to say and operate on that basis. Now here's 364 00:20:34,640 --> 00:20:38,560 Speaker 1: where it goes with viewpoint invariant representations, especially as it 365 00:20:38,600 --> 00:20:42,240 Speaker 1: concerns like physical objects in the world. Schneider argues that 366 00:20:42,280 --> 00:20:46,119 Speaker 1: you can expect any biologically inspired AI to have viewpoint 367 00:20:46,240 --> 00:20:50,960 Speaker 1: invariant representations because they seem to be inextricably linked to 368 00:20:51,040 --> 00:20:56,360 Speaker 1: the biological development of intelligence. And uh, just I'm expanding 369 00:20:56,359 --> 00:20:58,440 Speaker 1: on her thoughts here, but I think the reasoning goes 370 00:20:58,480 --> 00:21:02,000 Speaker 1: something like this, what is intelligence? That's actually kind of 371 00:21:02,000 --> 00:21:04,879 Speaker 1: a difficult question to answer, right, Like, it's kind of 372 00:21:04,880 --> 00:21:07,959 Speaker 1: hard to pin down. But I think one plausible answer 373 00:21:08,040 --> 00:21:12,240 Speaker 1: has to do with speed. Intelligence has something to do 374 00:21:12,680 --> 00:21:17,440 Speaker 1: with the ability to accelerate problem solving or goal acquisition. 375 00:21:17,520 --> 00:21:20,480 Speaker 1: So you could have an organism that has essentially a 376 00:21:20,600 --> 00:21:24,399 Speaker 1: random strategy for trying to get what it wants, and 377 00:21:24,520 --> 00:21:28,119 Speaker 1: every step it goes above a random strategy is in 378 00:21:28,119 --> 00:21:32,120 Speaker 1: a way an increase in intelligence. It's accelerating the solution 379 00:21:32,160 --> 00:21:35,320 Speaker 1: of problems. Now, to follow the biological reasoning a little 380 00:21:35,359 --> 00:21:39,560 Speaker 1: further there, why is it that animals in general need 381 00:21:39,640 --> 00:21:45,200 Speaker 1: a speed of problem solving intelligence that most plants do not. Well, 382 00:21:45,240 --> 00:21:48,280 Speaker 1: I think the answer there is that animals survival and 383 00:21:48,320 --> 00:21:52,639 Speaker 1: reproduction strategies are usually based on movement. This wouldn't be 384 00:21:52,640 --> 00:21:55,280 Speaker 1: true of all things in the you know, kingdom animalia. 385 00:21:55,280 --> 00:21:57,600 Speaker 1: I'm not so much for sponges and stuff, but most 386 00:21:57,640 --> 00:22:02,200 Speaker 1: animals move fairly rapidly, whether us for foraging or evading 387 00:22:02,240 --> 00:22:06,520 Speaker 1: predators or seeking mates or anything like that. If you 388 00:22:06,600 --> 00:22:10,719 Speaker 1: are able to move fairly quickly, that means your body 389 00:22:10,800 --> 00:22:14,520 Speaker 1: needs a system of deciding in what direction to move 390 00:22:14,600 --> 00:22:18,480 Speaker 1: relatively quickly. And so I could be missing something here, 391 00:22:18,480 --> 00:22:20,320 Speaker 1: but it seems to me that it's a pretty safe 392 00:22:20,320 --> 00:22:23,760 Speaker 1: assumption that this is one of the major drivers of 393 00:22:23,800 --> 00:22:27,240 Speaker 1: the development of biological intelligence, coming up with better and 394 00:22:27,280 --> 00:22:33,320 Speaker 1: better systems for adaptively optimizing strategies for rapid movement to 395 00:22:33,400 --> 00:22:35,840 Speaker 1: fit the specifics of the situation you're in. So you're 396 00:22:35,880 --> 00:22:41,040 Speaker 1: constantly faced with new situations, predator approaching from a different angle, uh, 397 00:22:41,160 --> 00:22:44,159 Speaker 1: food to be found in a different you know, orientation, 398 00:22:44,320 --> 00:22:47,280 Speaker 1: or like in a different hard to reach space, and 399 00:22:47,359 --> 00:22:50,719 Speaker 1: your body needs a way to adapt to whatever situation 400 00:22:50,760 --> 00:22:53,880 Speaker 1: you're in to decide the best way to move. Yeah, 401 00:22:53,960 --> 00:22:57,480 Speaker 1: it kind of comes down to a certain extent passive 402 00:22:57,760 --> 00:23:04,160 Speaker 1: energy acquisition versus active energy acquisition. Yes, because you know, obviously, 403 00:23:04,160 --> 00:23:07,000 Speaker 1: if you have passive energy acquisition, you don't necessarily need 404 00:23:07,040 --> 00:23:08,440 Speaker 1: to move as much. You know, you can just sort 405 00:23:08,440 --> 00:23:10,560 Speaker 1: of set up shop. And of course we see examples 406 00:23:10,560 --> 00:23:13,880 Speaker 1: of that not only in plants, but also in animals 407 00:23:13,880 --> 00:23:16,560 Speaker 1: as well. Yeah, I mean, how would it help a 408 00:23:16,640 --> 00:23:19,119 Speaker 1: plant to have a brain, you know, the plant just 409 00:23:19,160 --> 00:23:23,760 Speaker 1: needs to basically be hardy and sit there and collect sunlight. Yeah. Now, 410 00:23:23,800 --> 00:23:25,960 Speaker 1: then again, I guess I could imagine a scenario where 411 00:23:26,000 --> 00:23:29,080 Speaker 1: plants evolved intelligence. If they've got some kind of I 412 00:23:29,119 --> 00:23:32,119 Speaker 1: don't know, mechanism that allows them to start moving more quickly, 413 00:23:32,160 --> 00:23:34,679 Speaker 1: they could start evolving so that they could you know, 414 00:23:34,720 --> 00:23:38,359 Speaker 1: trees could evade lumberjacks or something. Well, you know, But 415 00:23:38,400 --> 00:23:40,879 Speaker 1: before we get you know, multiple emails about this, I 416 00:23:40,920 --> 00:23:44,280 Speaker 1: will say we will do an episode on plant intelligence 417 00:23:44,320 --> 00:23:46,440 Speaker 1: at some point, because there's a lot of interesting stuff 418 00:23:46,480 --> 00:23:50,080 Speaker 1: out there, and some some really some actually there's some 419 00:23:50,160 --> 00:23:52,080 Speaker 1: arguments that kind of turn some of what we're saying 420 00:23:52,080 --> 00:23:54,720 Speaker 1: here on its head. So, uh well, we'll have to 421 00:23:54,800 --> 00:23:56,840 Speaker 1: keep this conversation in mind when we get around to 422 00:23:56,920 --> 00:23:59,920 Speaker 1: that future conversation. That's a good point. I mean, at 423 00:24:00,160 --> 00:24:03,040 Speaker 1: the movement thing would have to be not a universal 424 00:24:03,200 --> 00:24:05,960 Speaker 1: necessity for the development of intelligence, but it seems like 425 00:24:06,040 --> 00:24:09,000 Speaker 1: one of the major pathway that it has evolved on Earth, 426 00:24:09,800 --> 00:24:13,040 Speaker 1: because I mean, you can imagine other things. Basically intelligence 427 00:24:13,080 --> 00:24:17,080 Speaker 1: allows adaptive problem solving, so that could also involve say, 428 00:24:17,240 --> 00:24:21,639 Speaker 1: not moving your body, but releasing chemicals into the environment 429 00:24:21,800 --> 00:24:25,920 Speaker 1: and allowing communication between different nodes in a hub of 430 00:24:26,080 --> 00:24:29,480 Speaker 1: trees or fungus or something. Yeah, you can have some 431 00:24:29,560 --> 00:24:34,679 Speaker 1: sort of you know, pheromone spitting um like master plant. Uh, 432 00:24:34,720 --> 00:24:36,520 Speaker 1: that is that has other things to do its bidding, 433 00:24:36,520 --> 00:24:39,159 Speaker 1: that has other things built at spacecraft. But to the 434 00:24:39,200 --> 00:24:42,840 Speaker 1: extent that biological intelligence is often a product of the 435 00:24:42,880 --> 00:24:48,080 Speaker 1: evolution of rapid movement, viewpoint in variant representations would seem 436 00:24:48,119 --> 00:24:51,520 Speaker 1: to be a necessary part of intelligence there because they 437 00:24:51,520 --> 00:24:55,080 Speaker 1: are necessary for an intelligent creature that moves. If you 438 00:24:55,119 --> 00:24:58,439 Speaker 1: are able to move your body, your sense data about 439 00:24:58,560 --> 00:25:01,320 Speaker 1: objects in your environment is going to be changing based 440 00:25:01,359 --> 00:25:03,679 Speaker 1: on your perspective, especially if those senses are based on 441 00:25:03,760 --> 00:25:06,640 Speaker 1: something that has linear trajectories like light. You know, light 442 00:25:06,720 --> 00:25:08,720 Speaker 1: bounces off things in a linear ways. You're going to 443 00:25:08,800 --> 00:25:10,639 Speaker 1: see different angles of it. I don't know. If you 444 00:25:10,680 --> 00:25:13,679 Speaker 1: were a creature entirely based on smells, I don't know. 445 00:25:13,720 --> 00:25:16,840 Speaker 1: I guess then still viewpoint invariant would matter because you know, 446 00:25:16,920 --> 00:25:19,600 Speaker 1: there would be different concentrations of volatiles in the air 447 00:25:19,640 --> 00:25:22,879 Speaker 1: depending on where you stand relative to an object. But 448 00:25:22,920 --> 00:25:25,720 Speaker 1: it seems like in general these types of representations would 449 00:25:25,760 --> 00:25:28,840 Speaker 1: be useful uh in that regard, and then Schneider adds 450 00:25:28,880 --> 00:25:32,679 Speaker 1: another point there. She says that viewpoint invariant representations are 451 00:25:32,720 --> 00:25:35,560 Speaker 1: not only important so that we don't get confused about 452 00:25:35,560 --> 00:25:37,800 Speaker 1: what we're looking at in the environment. You know, you 453 00:25:37,800 --> 00:25:40,520 Speaker 1: don't look at a rock from the opposite side and 454 00:25:40,680 --> 00:25:43,600 Speaker 1: not understand it's the same rock. She says they're also 455 00:25:43,680 --> 00:25:48,240 Speaker 1: important for abstract reasoning. Quote, you have mental representations that 456 00:25:48,280 --> 00:25:51,760 Speaker 1: are at a relatively high level of processing inter viewpoint invariant. 457 00:25:52,040 --> 00:25:55,760 Speaker 1: It seems difficult for biologically based intelligence to evolve without 458 00:25:55,920 --> 00:26:01,479 Speaker 1: viewpoint invariant representations, as they enable categorization and prediction. So, 459 00:26:01,640 --> 00:26:05,040 Speaker 1: because you can represent objects as a kind of symbol 460 00:26:05,200 --> 00:26:08,720 Speaker 1: or or emblem of themselves in your brain that is 461 00:26:08,760 --> 00:26:11,720 Speaker 1: independent of just the one way they looked when you 462 00:26:11,840 --> 00:26:14,320 Speaker 1: looked at them from one angle, you can sort of 463 00:26:14,359 --> 00:26:16,359 Speaker 1: like you can turn them around in your brain and 464 00:26:16,400 --> 00:26:18,399 Speaker 1: think about how they might be used as a tool, 465 00:26:18,880 --> 00:26:21,600 Speaker 1: or you can predict how they would act given certain 466 00:26:21,600 --> 00:26:24,399 Speaker 1: physical forces on them. Yeah, and you know that this 467 00:26:24,440 --> 00:26:26,800 Speaker 1: makes me think a little bit of the book by 468 00:26:26,880 --> 00:26:31,240 Speaker 1: David Eagleman, Live Wired, talking about like the different sensory 469 00:26:31,280 --> 00:26:34,600 Speaker 1: inputs for the human brain. And how if you if 470 00:26:34,640 --> 00:26:36,280 Speaker 1: you you know, you lose one sensory input and you 471 00:26:36,280 --> 00:26:38,960 Speaker 1: can add another, or you can even add all new 472 00:26:39,040 --> 00:26:42,000 Speaker 1: sensory inputs. Our brains will make sense of it. Our 473 00:26:42,040 --> 00:26:46,960 Speaker 1: brains will essentially form that mental image of the thing, um, 474 00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:50,480 Speaker 1: even if we don't have visual processing at our disposal. 475 00:26:50,560 --> 00:26:53,560 Speaker 1: So if an alien brain is is it all like 476 00:26:53,600 --> 00:26:57,600 Speaker 1: a human brain, you know, in in enough respects, then 477 00:26:57,640 --> 00:26:59,199 Speaker 1: it seems like the same thing would be going on 478 00:26:59,280 --> 00:27:02,840 Speaker 1: even if we were dealing with being that say, evolved 479 00:27:03,440 --> 00:27:06,159 Speaker 1: with less of a reliance on vision or more of 480 00:27:06,200 --> 00:27:09,159 Speaker 1: a reliance on other senses or even some sense that 481 00:27:09,840 --> 00:27:11,680 Speaker 1: you know that we have a have a difficult time 482 00:27:11,720 --> 00:27:15,120 Speaker 1: imagining because we don't possess it ourselves. Yeah. Yeah, that 483 00:27:15,119 --> 00:27:17,800 Speaker 1: that that it would need based on whatever senses. It 484 00:27:17,920 --> 00:27:22,840 Speaker 1: had to have some kind of mental representations of objects 485 00:27:22,840 --> 00:27:25,200 Speaker 1: in the world that would not be changed just by 486 00:27:25,240 --> 00:27:29,760 Speaker 1: slightly changing the physical perspective from which you sense that object. Yeah. 487 00:27:29,880 --> 00:27:32,919 Speaker 1: Now it does alrely those sorts of interesting questions like 488 00:27:32,960 --> 00:27:35,000 Speaker 1: what if what if the sense of smell was the 489 00:27:35,040 --> 00:27:39,280 Speaker 1: primary sense? How do you create, say, a control panel 490 00:27:40,000 --> 00:27:42,719 Speaker 1: for your spaceship? You know? Interesting like each button has 491 00:27:42,720 --> 00:27:46,960 Speaker 1: a different smell. I don't know, they're again, maybe it's 492 00:27:46,960 --> 00:27:50,760 Speaker 1: a situation where we don't have a versatile enough palette 493 00:27:51,480 --> 00:27:54,720 Speaker 1: or appreciation of the palette ourselves to even envision what 494 00:27:54,800 --> 00:27:58,000 Speaker 1: that would be like. But you know, our our dogs, uh, 495 00:27:58,160 --> 00:28:00,280 Speaker 1: you know, if they were more intelligent, they could let 496 00:28:00,359 --> 00:28:02,120 Speaker 1: us know. They would say, oh yeah, I can totally 497 00:28:02,160 --> 00:28:04,320 Speaker 1: imagine what it would be like. Oh man, here's my 498 00:28:04,400 --> 00:28:09,400 Speaker 1: idea for sci fi novel. Okay, humans, humans come into 499 00:28:09,440 --> 00:28:13,360 Speaker 1: conflict with an interstellar species that has uh, that has 500 00:28:13,359 --> 00:28:16,359 Speaker 1: a culture that's all entirely based around a species with 501 00:28:16,400 --> 00:28:18,720 Speaker 1: a dominant sense of smell. And what we have to 502 00:28:18,800 --> 00:28:22,080 Speaker 1: do is uplift dogs to the point where they have 503 00:28:22,280 --> 00:28:25,320 Speaker 1: human intelligence so that they can tell us what it's 504 00:28:25,359 --> 00:28:27,840 Speaker 1: like to see the world through that much smell data, 505 00:28:28,119 --> 00:28:30,520 Speaker 1: so that we can better understand the aliens in order 506 00:28:30,560 --> 00:28:33,119 Speaker 1: to protect ourselves against them. Yeah, and if it's a 507 00:28:33,160 --> 00:28:36,440 Speaker 1: drelict ship or something like that, perhaps the control panels 508 00:28:36,560 --> 00:28:39,000 Speaker 1: like they've lost a lot of their smell, so it's 509 00:28:39,400 --> 00:28:42,360 Speaker 1: we don't even initially realize that this is a scent 510 00:28:42,440 --> 00:28:45,240 Speaker 1: based control system. But then the dogs they they're like, yes, 511 00:28:45,320 --> 00:28:47,920 Speaker 1: I can still smell things there are numerous smells going 512 00:28:47,920 --> 00:28:50,080 Speaker 1: on here. This is like sticking my head out the 513 00:28:50,120 --> 00:28:54,719 Speaker 1: window while you drive around town. This is gold. Yeah, Okay, Well, anyway, 514 00:28:54,880 --> 00:28:57,840 Speaker 1: I think Schneider's point here is a really interesting one. 515 00:28:57,880 --> 00:29:00,280 Speaker 1: I do think that's worth considering about the view point 516 00:29:00,320 --> 00:29:04,320 Speaker 1: in variant representation. But to move on to her next point, Uh, 517 00:29:04,360 --> 00:29:06,680 Speaker 1: this one's also I think pretty cool. She says, be 518 00:29:06,840 --> 00:29:11,840 Speaker 1: says will probably have language like mental representations that are 519 00:29:11,920 --> 00:29:17,200 Speaker 1: recursive and combinatorial. And to illustrate this, Schneider gives the 520 00:29:17,280 --> 00:29:21,800 Speaker 1: example of novel sentences. Now, we encounter novel sentences all 521 00:29:21,800 --> 00:29:24,040 Speaker 1: the time, every day. I'll do one of my own. Here. 522 00:29:24,280 --> 00:29:28,600 Speaker 1: Here's the sentence the Howling seven New Moon Rising is 523 00:29:28,640 --> 00:29:32,880 Speaker 1: the greatest film ever made. You have never heard this 524 00:29:33,000 --> 00:29:37,320 Speaker 1: sentence spoken before, and yet you understand perfectly what it 525 00:29:37,360 --> 00:29:40,160 Speaker 1: would mean for somebody to say this. Why is it 526 00:29:40,240 --> 00:29:45,560 Speaker 1: that we're constantly hearing and speaking totally unique, brand new sentences, 527 00:29:45,600 --> 00:29:48,680 Speaker 1: probably never uttered before by any humans, certainly not in 528 00:29:48,680 --> 00:29:52,520 Speaker 1: a way that we've heard, and yet they're perfectly comprehensible. 529 00:29:53,080 --> 00:29:56,640 Speaker 1: Schneider argues that quote the key is that the thoughts 530 00:29:56,640 --> 00:30:01,280 Speaker 1: are combinatorial because they're built out of familiar constituents and 531 00:30:01,360 --> 00:30:05,680 Speaker 1: combined according to rules. The rules apply to constructions out 532 00:30:05,680 --> 00:30:10,320 Speaker 1: of primitive constituents that are themselves constructed grammatically, as well 533 00:30:10,360 --> 00:30:15,920 Speaker 1: as to primitive constituents themselves. Grammatical mental operations are incredibly useful. 534 00:30:16,320 --> 00:30:19,360 Speaker 1: It is the combinatorial nature of thought that allows one 535 00:30:19,400 --> 00:30:22,440 Speaker 1: to understand and produce these sentences on the basis of 536 00:30:22,480 --> 00:30:27,280 Speaker 1: one's antisedent knowledge of the grammar and atomic constituents. So, 537 00:30:27,560 --> 00:30:31,640 Speaker 1: because you have an internalized sense of grammar, not just 538 00:30:32,040 --> 00:30:33,760 Speaker 1: you know, it's not just that you know what the 539 00:30:33,840 --> 00:30:38,160 Speaker 1: words mean individually, but you also grasp the rules that 540 00:30:38,240 --> 00:30:41,440 Speaker 1: apply to how sentences work. And then you even grasp 541 00:30:41,520 --> 00:30:43,960 Speaker 1: rules that go beyond just how sentences work. You grasp 542 00:30:44,080 --> 00:30:47,080 Speaker 1: sort of cultural rules about how words fit together to 543 00:30:47,200 --> 00:30:50,400 Speaker 1: form meaning. One example in the sentence I said is 544 00:30:50,440 --> 00:30:52,920 Speaker 1: that even if you've never heard of the Howling seven 545 00:30:52,960 --> 00:30:56,080 Speaker 1: New Moon Rising, you could probably understand that this is 546 00:30:56,120 --> 00:30:59,200 Speaker 1: the name of a movie. Okay, but so so what's 547 00:30:59,200 --> 00:31:03,000 Speaker 1: the point then she's she's making about the mind of 548 00:31:02,760 --> 00:31:05,960 Speaker 1: of of these potential alien AI. Well, basically that it 549 00:31:06,000 --> 00:31:09,120 Speaker 1: would probably be language based. She goes on to say 550 00:31:09,160 --> 00:31:12,120 Speaker 1: that a mind quote can entertain and produce an infinite 551 00:31:12,160 --> 00:31:17,560 Speaker 1: number of distinct representations because the mind has a combinatorial syntax, 552 00:31:17,720 --> 00:31:21,760 Speaker 1: so something like a language with grammar. And she concludes 553 00:31:21,840 --> 00:31:26,360 Speaker 1: this point by saying, quote, brains need combinatorial representations because 554 00:31:26,360 --> 00:31:30,600 Speaker 1: there are infinitely many possible linguistic representations, you know, an 555 00:31:30,600 --> 00:31:33,800 Speaker 1: infinite number of sentences, you could say. And the brain 556 00:31:33,920 --> 00:31:37,120 Speaker 1: only has a finite storage space, right, So the brain 557 00:31:37,200 --> 00:31:41,440 Speaker 1: can't just store every possible sentence within itself and then 558 00:31:41,520 --> 00:31:45,120 Speaker 1: check whatever somebody just said against that sentence stored in memory. 559 00:31:45,440 --> 00:31:47,360 Speaker 1: It's got to be flexible. It's got to be able 560 00:31:47,400 --> 00:31:51,640 Speaker 1: to build an understanding of sentences on the fly based 561 00:31:51,680 --> 00:31:55,440 Speaker 1: on these constituent parts and an understanding of grammar. Okay, 562 00:31:55,480 --> 00:31:56,960 Speaker 1: that makes sense. I think that's one of those things 563 00:31:57,000 --> 00:31:58,960 Speaker 1: that most of us, you know, in our sci fi visions, 564 00:31:58,960 --> 00:32:02,360 Speaker 1: we tend to just assume the intelligent aliens have some 565 00:32:02,400 --> 00:32:04,840 Speaker 1: sort of a language and they're you know, an AI 566 00:32:04,960 --> 00:32:07,520 Speaker 1: version would as well. But it is good to see 567 00:32:07,560 --> 00:32:11,080 Speaker 1: that um driven home with logic here. Well, I mean, 568 00:32:11,120 --> 00:32:13,640 Speaker 1: you could imagine somebody arguing the opposite way. You could 569 00:32:13,640 --> 00:32:17,200 Speaker 1: say that maybe language is only useful for humans to 570 00:32:17,240 --> 00:32:20,280 Speaker 1: communicate with each other. And that once you had something 571 00:32:20,360 --> 00:32:23,440 Speaker 1: like a super intelligent AI, no longer would need to 572 00:32:23,560 --> 00:32:26,640 Speaker 1: communicate with these primitive tools. It could just have I 573 00:32:26,640 --> 00:32:28,920 Speaker 1: don't know what, you know, imagine some kind of machine 574 00:32:29,960 --> 00:32:34,400 Speaker 1: version of telepathy where it just it represents the world 575 00:32:34,600 --> 00:32:36,480 Speaker 1: as some kind of I don't know what it would be, 576 00:32:36,720 --> 00:32:40,520 Speaker 1: represents some kind of internal states two different parts of 577 00:32:40,560 --> 00:32:46,600 Speaker 1: itself without having a code system like language. But Schneider says, quote, 578 00:32:46,840 --> 00:32:51,400 Speaker 1: even a super intelligent system would benefit from combinatorial representations. 579 00:32:51,440 --> 00:32:55,560 Speaker 1: Although a super intelligent system could have computational resources that 580 00:32:55,640 --> 00:32:58,600 Speaker 1: are so vast that it is mostly capable of pairing 581 00:32:58,720 --> 00:33:02,400 Speaker 1: up utterances or in cryptions with a stored sentence, it 582 00:33:02,400 --> 00:33:04,920 Speaker 1: would be unlikely that it would trade away such a 583 00:33:04,960 --> 00:33:08,560 Speaker 1: marvelous innovation of biological brains. If it did, it would 584 00:33:08,560 --> 00:33:11,320 Speaker 1: be less efficient since there is the potential of a 585 00:33:11,400 --> 00:33:14,880 Speaker 1: sentence not being in its storage, which must be finite. 586 00:33:15,520 --> 00:33:18,600 Speaker 1: So again she's saying here like, even if you would 587 00:33:18,640 --> 00:33:23,320 Speaker 1: imagine that superintelligences would get so powerful that they wouldn't 588 00:33:23,400 --> 00:33:26,480 Speaker 1: need something like language to communicate with each other, it's 589 00:33:26,480 --> 00:33:29,360 Speaker 1: actually still better to have something like a language, even 590 00:33:29,440 --> 00:33:32,920 Speaker 1: for internal logic and representing computations from one part of 591 00:33:32,920 --> 00:33:35,640 Speaker 1: a system to another. Yeah, I mean it's it's like 592 00:33:35,680 --> 00:33:38,080 Speaker 1: having a logic budget, you know. I mean you can 593 00:33:38,440 --> 00:33:40,479 Speaker 1: just because you you have a lot of energy at 594 00:33:40,480 --> 00:33:42,560 Speaker 1: your disposal, doesn't mean you just throw the budget out 595 00:33:42,600 --> 00:33:45,960 Speaker 1: the window. Yeah. So again, you know, we're dealing in 596 00:33:46,040 --> 00:33:48,800 Speaker 1: highly speculative realms. I think it's always possible we were 597 00:33:49,000 --> 00:33:51,920 Speaker 1: being misled by a lack of imagination, but I think 598 00:33:51,920 --> 00:33:54,600 Speaker 1: this point is very strong. It seems very likely to 599 00:33:54,640 --> 00:33:58,160 Speaker 1: me that post biological AI would benefit from some kind 600 00:33:58,160 --> 00:34:02,360 Speaker 1: of language like system of tool symbols and representations that 601 00:34:02,800 --> 00:34:12,600 Speaker 1: were subject to something like a grammar. Now, there's one 602 00:34:12,600 --> 00:34:15,320 Speaker 1: point she makes that we already mentioned, and that's that quote, 603 00:34:15,400 --> 00:34:20,520 Speaker 1: visas may have one or more global workspaces. Uh. Now again, 604 00:34:20,560 --> 00:34:24,080 Speaker 1: to explain the global workspace idea, Schneider argues, quote, the 605 00:34:24,160 --> 00:34:28,799 Speaker 1: global workspace operates as a singular place where important information 606 00:34:28,880 --> 00:34:32,239 Speaker 1: from the senses is considered in tandem, so that the 607 00:34:32,280 --> 00:34:36,560 Speaker 1: creature can make all things considered judgments and act intelligently 608 00:34:36,920 --> 00:34:40,480 Speaker 1: in light of all the facts at its disposable. In general, 609 00:34:40,560 --> 00:34:43,200 Speaker 1: it would be inefficient to have a sense or cognitive 610 00:34:43,200 --> 00:34:46,799 Speaker 1: capacity that was not integrated with the others, because the 611 00:34:46,840 --> 00:34:50,720 Speaker 1: information from this sense or cognitive capacity would be unable 612 00:34:50,840 --> 00:34:54,239 Speaker 1: to figure in predictions and plans based on an assessment 613 00:34:54,320 --> 00:34:58,240 Speaker 1: of all the available information. Now, this one I'm actually 614 00:34:58,320 --> 00:35:01,600 Speaker 1: less sure about, because I would say, and maybe I'm 615 00:35:01,640 --> 00:35:05,000 Speaker 1: I'm partially misunderstanding her point here, But but I can 616 00:35:05,040 --> 00:35:07,520 Speaker 1: think of counter arguments to this, like isn't there some 617 00:35:07,600 --> 00:35:11,839 Speaker 1: evidence that the brain does keep some relevant processing information 618 00:35:12,360 --> 00:35:17,760 Speaker 1: hidden from or segregated from conscious awareness in certain scenarios, 619 00:35:17,760 --> 00:35:20,000 Speaker 1: Like maybe there are some types of information that are 620 00:35:20,200 --> 00:35:23,960 Speaker 1: useful in making certain kinds of calculations but tend to 621 00:35:24,000 --> 00:35:28,279 Speaker 1: be inhibitory towards other types of calculations or thought processes 622 00:35:28,600 --> 00:35:31,560 Speaker 1: if they're considered at the same time. So it's sometimes 623 00:35:31,680 --> 00:35:36,120 Speaker 1: useful to keep senses or knowledge separated from the cognitive workspace. 624 00:35:36,440 --> 00:35:39,319 Speaker 1: A very simple example would be the knowledge that you 625 00:35:39,360 --> 00:35:42,520 Speaker 1: are hungry. The knowledge that you're hungry is useful if 626 00:35:42,560 --> 00:35:45,040 Speaker 1: you're in a position to get something to eat. But 627 00:35:45,200 --> 00:35:48,120 Speaker 1: imagine you are stuck on the subway and you don't 628 00:35:48,160 --> 00:35:49,920 Speaker 1: have any food on you, and there's no way you 629 00:35:49,960 --> 00:35:52,680 Speaker 1: could get food at the at the current time, and 630 00:35:52,760 --> 00:35:56,440 Speaker 1: you're trying to read something or prepare for a work presentation. 631 00:35:57,000 --> 00:36:00,400 Speaker 1: Their awareness of your hunger is actually counterproduct, doud, it's 632 00:36:00,520 --> 00:36:04,080 Speaker 1: just distracting you and adding nothing. Yeah, I mean it's 633 00:36:04,080 --> 00:36:06,239 Speaker 1: it's kind of like the idea of like any an 634 00:36:06,400 --> 00:36:10,680 Speaker 1: enormous buffet right at a let's say a hotel or 635 00:36:10,880 --> 00:36:13,279 Speaker 1: you know, show needs or something you know, and you 636 00:36:13,320 --> 00:36:15,320 Speaker 1: go through it with your plate. You get the things 637 00:36:15,320 --> 00:36:17,600 Speaker 1: off that plate that are necessary for the meal you're 638 00:36:17,600 --> 00:36:20,160 Speaker 1: about to have, and then of course you can engage 639 00:36:20,160 --> 00:36:22,719 Speaker 1: in the various combinations and problem solving involved in the 640 00:36:22,719 --> 00:36:24,960 Speaker 1: consumption of that meal. But you don't need a drag 641 00:36:25,120 --> 00:36:27,160 Speaker 1: the popcorn shrimp into it if you're not gonna eat 642 00:36:27,200 --> 00:36:29,640 Speaker 1: the popcorn shrimp. You know, if you can't eat the 643 00:36:29,680 --> 00:36:32,080 Speaker 1: popcorn shrimp, why would that be part of Why would 644 00:36:32,080 --> 00:36:33,480 Speaker 1: that be on the plate? Why would that be on 645 00:36:33,520 --> 00:36:35,680 Speaker 1: in the workspace? Or you don't have to put the 646 00:36:35,719 --> 00:36:38,399 Speaker 1: ice cream Sunday on the same plate that you put 647 00:36:38,440 --> 00:36:41,080 Speaker 1: the nachos on, right, Yeah, it can be off to 648 00:36:41,120 --> 00:36:44,839 Speaker 1: the side. You can keep the banana pudding segregated from 649 00:36:44,880 --> 00:36:48,160 Speaker 1: the crab legs. Yeah. Then again, I think to be 650 00:36:48,200 --> 00:36:51,400 Speaker 1: fair to this argument, you could probably also counter argue 651 00:36:51,719 --> 00:36:54,880 Speaker 1: that this type of problem is only a result of 652 00:36:55,000 --> 00:36:58,239 Speaker 1: inefficiencies in our brains that maybe could be worked out 653 00:36:58,280 --> 00:37:02,120 Speaker 1: by artificial intelligence, you know, upgrading itself. Maybe you could 654 00:37:02,120 --> 00:37:04,960 Speaker 1: reach the point where you could have a global workspace 655 00:37:05,080 --> 00:37:08,600 Speaker 1: where all information is available at the same time, and 656 00:37:08,840 --> 00:37:12,440 Speaker 1: information that is not useful now can can just be 657 00:37:12,600 --> 00:37:17,440 Speaker 1: sort of like safely ignored and won't be distracting. M M, yeah, 658 00:37:17,880 --> 00:37:19,960 Speaker 1: I don't know. It's it's hard to imagine, like it's 659 00:37:20,000 --> 00:37:21,520 Speaker 1: it kind of makes one think of some of like 660 00:37:21,560 --> 00:37:24,640 Speaker 1: a situation where something is built by committee, where all 661 00:37:24,680 --> 00:37:27,879 Speaker 1: all concerns and all factors are involved, and I don't 662 00:37:27,880 --> 00:37:30,120 Speaker 1: know that kind of thing can lead to I guess 663 00:37:30,120 --> 00:37:32,840 Speaker 1: with the right kind of project, it can be rather successful. 664 00:37:32,840 --> 00:37:34,239 Speaker 1: You can sort of look at it both ways, right, 665 00:37:34,280 --> 00:37:38,160 Speaker 1: You could look at like a a highly um efficient 666 00:37:38,840 --> 00:37:42,359 Speaker 1: like NASA project, Right, But then we can also think 667 00:37:42,400 --> 00:37:45,719 Speaker 1: of you know, artistic projects that might be compromised by 668 00:37:45,760 --> 00:37:47,440 Speaker 1: such an approach. So I don't know, you can look 669 00:37:47,440 --> 00:37:50,680 Speaker 1: at it different ways. Maybe with the sorts of projects 670 00:37:50,680 --> 00:37:54,600 Speaker 1: that you know, super intelligent AI would would be focused on, 671 00:37:54,760 --> 00:37:57,279 Speaker 1: it would make sense. I mean, I will at least 672 00:37:57,280 --> 00:38:00,840 Speaker 1: say with my current limited biological brain, there are certainly 673 00:38:00,920 --> 00:38:03,200 Speaker 1: times when it is better to have parts of my 674 00:38:03,280 --> 00:38:07,680 Speaker 1: awareness and parts of my cognition inaccessible to my consciousness. Yeah, 675 00:38:07,719 --> 00:38:10,680 Speaker 1: I mean there are some arguments that, uh, that that 676 00:38:10,760 --> 00:38:15,239 Speaker 1: put forward that that consciousness itself is like part part 677 00:38:15,280 --> 00:38:18,879 Speaker 1: of consciousness is having a minimal attention, you know, being 678 00:38:18,920 --> 00:38:21,440 Speaker 1: able to focus in on something and not be focused 679 00:38:21,440 --> 00:38:23,640 Speaker 1: in on everything else like that, That is where the 680 00:38:23,680 --> 00:38:27,400 Speaker 1: consciousness happens. Yeah. Uh, the consciousness could be sort of 681 00:38:27,440 --> 00:38:30,360 Speaker 1: the spotlight within your global workspace. You've got like a 682 00:38:30,440 --> 00:38:34,200 Speaker 1: workspace for problem solving, and consciousness is how you you 683 00:38:34,239 --> 00:38:36,400 Speaker 1: determine what is right in front of you in that 684 00:38:36,440 --> 00:38:40,480 Speaker 1: space right now. And then finally, Schneider argues that a 685 00:38:40,680 --> 00:38:45,759 Speaker 1: visa's mental processing can be understood via functional decomposition. Uh, 686 00:38:45,800 --> 00:38:47,920 Speaker 1: and this is fairly straightforward. It is just, you know, 687 00:38:48,040 --> 00:38:51,319 Speaker 1: minds are hard to understand. Brains are incredibly complex. The 688 00:38:51,360 --> 00:38:53,880 Speaker 1: same would be true of super intelligence is whatever kind 689 00:38:53,880 --> 00:38:57,560 Speaker 1: of physical substrate they're based on. But you can break 690 00:38:57,640 --> 00:39:03,560 Speaker 1: down brains and computers into their constituent functional parts and structures, 691 00:39:03,960 --> 00:39:06,920 Speaker 1: and by doing that you can break the big problem 692 00:39:06,960 --> 00:39:10,279 Speaker 1: into smaller problems and more easily understand how they work. 693 00:39:10,360 --> 00:39:12,960 Speaker 1: And this would in theory at least apply even to 694 00:39:13,200 --> 00:39:16,839 Speaker 1: incredibly powerful AI. S Okay, fair enough. Now there's one 695 00:39:16,920 --> 00:39:18,960 Speaker 1: last thing I was wondering about. This is not raised 696 00:39:18,960 --> 00:39:23,440 Speaker 1: by Schneider. This just occurred to me. Would post biological 697 00:39:23,560 --> 00:39:27,000 Speaker 1: AI be likely to have an equivalent of what we 698 00:39:27,120 --> 00:39:31,080 Speaker 1: regard as emotions? You know, if you if you encounter 699 00:39:31,160 --> 00:39:34,080 Speaker 1: one of these things, would it matter in what tone 700 00:39:34,120 --> 00:39:36,200 Speaker 1: of voice you were to speak to it. Would it 701 00:39:36,200 --> 00:39:41,920 Speaker 1: be possible to hurt its feelings? I don't know. Like, um, 702 00:39:41,960 --> 00:39:45,000 Speaker 1: perhaps in turn, like we might have to break down 703 00:39:45,040 --> 00:39:47,759 Speaker 1: what emotions are in a way that would make sense 704 00:39:47,760 --> 00:39:50,080 Speaker 1: to something like this, Like maybe part of it would 705 00:39:50,120 --> 00:39:53,160 Speaker 1: come down to urgency, you know. Um, So there might 706 00:39:53,200 --> 00:39:55,879 Speaker 1: be a situation where, out of urgency, the machine would 707 00:39:55,960 --> 00:40:00,000 Speaker 1: need to essentially raise its voice. Um, though it would 708 00:40:00,080 --> 00:40:02,480 Speaker 1: maybe not you know, maybe this would not be carried 709 00:40:02,520 --> 00:40:05,960 Speaker 1: out in a way that we would think of as emotional, 710 00:40:06,040 --> 00:40:09,560 Speaker 1: but it might, you know, seem similar as to whether 711 00:40:09,600 --> 00:40:14,920 Speaker 1: it's feelings could be hurt, I don't know. Maybe maybe 712 00:40:15,040 --> 00:40:19,400 Speaker 1: it's assessment of us could change based on the way 713 00:40:19,400 --> 00:40:22,920 Speaker 1: that we are expressing ourselves to it, and that is 714 00:40:23,000 --> 00:40:25,640 Speaker 1: similar to an emotional reaction. I don't know. Yeah, I 715 00:40:25,640 --> 00:40:30,880 Speaker 1: guess it's hard to separate emotional reactions to our behavior 716 00:40:31,040 --> 00:40:36,200 Speaker 1: with purely logical the ability to predict our future behavior, right, 717 00:40:36,200 --> 00:40:37,960 Speaker 1: because I would say a lot of ways that we 718 00:40:38,040 --> 00:40:41,640 Speaker 1: react emotionally to people, it could be very flawed in 719 00:40:41,680 --> 00:40:45,120 Speaker 1: this regard, but there at least somehow correlated to a 720 00:40:45,280 --> 00:40:48,120 Speaker 1: feeling about how this same person that is making you 721 00:40:48,160 --> 00:40:51,080 Speaker 1: feel a certain way now would behave towards you in 722 00:40:51,080 --> 00:40:53,960 Speaker 1: the future. Yeah. I mean, we're kind of all over 723 00:40:54,000 --> 00:40:58,120 Speaker 1: the board when it comes to imagining the emotional context 724 00:40:58,360 --> 00:41:01,360 Speaker 1: of of AI, because even when we we sort of 725 00:41:01,400 --> 00:41:02,960 Speaker 1: do that thing where we you know, we fall back 726 00:41:03,000 --> 00:41:06,359 Speaker 1: on on AI presented itself like this to us, uh 727 00:41:06,960 --> 00:41:09,960 Speaker 1: soft voice, Yes, like even that is like that, we 728 00:41:10,080 --> 00:41:13,560 Speaker 1: presented as being calm and understanding if if not, you know, 729 00:41:15,160 --> 00:41:17,680 Speaker 1: kind of emotional nous, but in a way that is 730 00:41:17,719 --> 00:41:21,400 Speaker 1: an emotion yeah British accent. But but also yeah, we 731 00:41:21,440 --> 00:41:24,239 Speaker 1: often we often imagine it as being sort of infinitely 732 00:41:24,280 --> 00:41:28,000 Speaker 1: calm and above above anger, which in and of itself 733 00:41:28,040 --> 00:41:31,080 Speaker 1: is kind of is an emotional state. So I guess 734 00:41:31,080 --> 00:41:33,920 Speaker 1: there are actually two totally different questions. Would a super 735 00:41:33,960 --> 00:41:39,440 Speaker 1: intelligent biologically inspired AI simulate emotions for the benefit of 736 00:41:39,560 --> 00:41:42,760 Speaker 1: a you know, for the benefit of a biological audience, 737 00:41:43,040 --> 00:41:46,720 Speaker 1: or would actually have something like emotions that are truly 738 00:41:46,840 --> 00:41:51,520 Speaker 1: motivating its own behavior. Yeah, I don't know, it's the thought. 739 00:41:51,760 --> 00:41:54,000 Speaker 1: It seems a difficult one to unravel. I guess where 740 00:41:54,000 --> 00:41:57,760 Speaker 1: my brain just went. Is when we imagine aliens becoming 741 00:41:57,760 --> 00:41:59,960 Speaker 1: aware of us, you know, and we try to imagine 742 00:42:00,080 --> 00:42:02,279 Speaker 1: their mind states, some of the ones we come to 743 00:42:02,360 --> 00:42:05,000 Speaker 1: are like pity, you know, like oh, these you know, 744 00:42:05,120 --> 00:42:07,880 Speaker 1: less technologically developed species of Earth. You know, maybe we 745 00:42:07,920 --> 00:42:12,319 Speaker 1: should help them, or maybe just a desire to destroy us, 746 00:42:12,360 --> 00:42:15,759 Speaker 1: squash us out, or a desire to like have all 747 00:42:15,800 --> 00:42:18,239 Speaker 1: of our resources. But we don't often imagine what if 748 00:42:18,280 --> 00:42:21,239 Speaker 1: the aliens encounter us and they're embarrassed for us, It's 749 00:42:21,280 --> 00:42:24,959 Speaker 1: like it's so cringe inducing. Well, and that that could 750 00:42:25,000 --> 00:42:27,880 Speaker 1: be part of them choosing not to engage with us 751 00:42:27,920 --> 00:42:31,359 Speaker 1: at all. Right, But anyway, I've found this chapter by 752 00:42:31,360 --> 00:42:34,160 Speaker 1: Schneider really interesting, even though I'm skeptical of some of 753 00:42:34,160 --> 00:42:36,640 Speaker 1: these transhumanist ideas, but I think this is really worth 754 00:42:36,640 --> 00:42:39,640 Speaker 1: a read. It's it's very interesting, awesome. Yeah, and uh, 755 00:42:39,640 --> 00:42:42,320 Speaker 1: and she's she's a just a good science communicator in general, 756 00:42:42,400 --> 00:42:44,799 Speaker 1: you'll find various talks that she's given. Um I think 757 00:42:44,800 --> 00:42:47,400 Speaker 1: she's done some work, you know, PPS or work has 758 00:42:47,440 --> 00:42:52,120 Speaker 1: been covered as well in various publications. So let's come 759 00:42:52,120 --> 00:42:55,759 Speaker 1: back to uh to show Stick though, and particularly his 760 00:42:55,880 --> 00:42:59,760 Speaker 1: idea is concerning SETTI the search for extra terrestrial intelligence. 761 00:43:00,280 --> 00:43:03,319 Speaker 1: What what does all of this mean for st uh So, 762 00:43:03,360 --> 00:43:07,080 Speaker 1: we'd be talking about in theory, a highly intelligent, effectively 763 00:43:07,160 --> 00:43:11,720 Speaker 1: immortal species, if you will, that evolves, can replicate itself, 764 00:43:11,880 --> 00:43:17,360 Speaker 1: and has no biological environmental demands. Interesting. Yeah, so how 765 00:43:17,440 --> 00:43:20,879 Speaker 1: does that change what you're looking for? Um? So, show 766 00:43:20,880 --> 00:43:23,120 Speaker 1: Stick could argues that, you know. Consequently, since it would 767 00:43:23,120 --> 00:43:27,239 Speaker 1: not be limited by biological lifespans, interstellar travel would be 768 00:43:27,520 --> 00:43:29,640 Speaker 1: would certainly be an option. You know, you wouldn't be 769 00:43:29,920 --> 00:43:33,360 Speaker 1: limited by your mortality. All trips would be the same length. 770 00:43:33,680 --> 00:43:36,239 Speaker 1: You would just need energy and material for replacement in 771 00:43:36,280 --> 00:43:39,960 Speaker 1: the improvement of parts. On top of this, these machines, 772 00:43:40,040 --> 00:43:44,560 Speaker 1: this machine civilization would not be limited to water worlds. Uh. 773 00:43:44,600 --> 00:43:48,520 Speaker 1: But while low energy machines could survive pretty much anywhere, 774 00:43:48,560 --> 00:43:52,759 Speaker 1: truly dominant post biological civilizations would still require a lot 775 00:43:52,800 --> 00:43:55,480 Speaker 1: of energy, and that of course means needing to be 776 00:43:55,600 --> 00:44:00,640 Speaker 1: near major energy sources such as stars and black holes. 777 00:44:01,120 --> 00:44:04,719 Speaker 1: It seems like, uh, once you transition from being a 778 00:44:04,760 --> 00:44:08,000 Speaker 1: biological life form to a post biological life form, the 779 00:44:08,080 --> 00:44:11,480 Speaker 1: specifics of your needs become less chemical and more just 780 00:44:11,560 --> 00:44:15,200 Speaker 1: broadly physical. Yeah. Yeah, so and this this of course 781 00:44:15,200 --> 00:44:17,839 Speaker 1: has ramifications for for part of the search for extra 782 00:44:17,840 --> 00:44:21,200 Speaker 1: structural life because then it means that, well, maybe searching 783 00:44:21,239 --> 00:44:23,839 Speaker 1: for rocky wet planets isn't where we're going to find 784 00:44:23,840 --> 00:44:27,279 Speaker 1: the advanced civilization because the advanced civilizations no longer need that. 785 00:44:27,800 --> 00:44:31,040 Speaker 1: So Showstack suggests that the galactic center would be the 786 00:44:31,120 --> 00:44:33,680 Speaker 1: ideal place for these machines to set up shop, a 787 00:44:33,719 --> 00:44:38,160 Speaker 1: region of high energy density. Again, distance and biological concerns 788 00:44:38,200 --> 00:44:41,960 Speaker 1: don't really matter, and likewise stellar black holes and neutron 789 00:44:42,040 --> 00:44:44,319 Speaker 1: stars might be ideal places for them to seek out 790 00:44:44,320 --> 00:44:49,640 Speaker 1: as well. However, he mentions that Serbian astrophysicist milan Im 791 00:44:49,920 --> 00:44:53,920 Speaker 1: Turkovich has argued that the outer regions of the galaxy 792 00:44:54,160 --> 00:44:58,200 Speaker 1: might also be ideal for such AI civilizations, as that is, 793 00:44:58,200 --> 00:45:03,120 Speaker 1: the cold there would permit radar thermodynamic efficiency. Ah. Yeah, 794 00:45:03,160 --> 00:45:05,799 Speaker 1: like we were talking about with the computer fan running right, 795 00:45:05,920 --> 00:45:10,960 Speaker 1: that a civilization. That is, in essence, a gigantic computer 796 00:45:11,560 --> 00:45:15,520 Speaker 1: would need to eject a lot of waste heat. Yeah, 797 00:45:16,120 --> 00:45:18,719 Speaker 1: still there would be less mass and energy out there 798 00:45:18,760 --> 00:45:21,319 Speaker 1: for them. So it's kind of like the same with 799 00:45:21,480 --> 00:45:25,640 Speaker 1: human decisions between a rural or an urban existence. Like, well, 800 00:45:25,680 --> 00:45:28,000 Speaker 1: if I if I live in the heart of the city, Well, 801 00:45:28,000 --> 00:45:29,800 Speaker 1: you know, I've got the theater right down the street. 802 00:45:29,880 --> 00:45:32,839 Speaker 1: I've got my favorite grocery store. Uh you know, I've 803 00:45:32,840 --> 00:45:35,080 Speaker 1: got I've got the you know, the place where I 804 00:45:35,120 --> 00:45:37,319 Speaker 1: get my technology worked on, and I move out to 805 00:45:37,320 --> 00:45:40,160 Speaker 1: the sticks while it's quieter. But now, how am I 806 00:45:40,160 --> 00:45:41,640 Speaker 1: going to get my groceries? How am I going to 807 00:45:41,680 --> 00:45:44,120 Speaker 1: get uh my culture? How am I going to get 808 00:45:44,160 --> 00:45:46,920 Speaker 1: my technology addressed? But I can just throw all my 809 00:45:46,960 --> 00:45:49,440 Speaker 1: garbage out the window and nobody bothers me about it. 810 00:45:51,760 --> 00:45:55,000 Speaker 1: So show Stuck argues that the ideal place to look here, 811 00:45:55,160 --> 00:45:56,440 Speaker 1: So this would be you know, this is kind of 812 00:45:56,440 --> 00:45:58,160 Speaker 1: like when humans make the idea of like, well, I 813 00:45:58,200 --> 00:46:00,200 Speaker 1: don't want to live I'm going to compromise. I'm not 814 00:46:00,200 --> 00:46:01,279 Speaker 1: gonna live in the heart of the city. I'm not 815 00:46:01,320 --> 00:46:02,839 Speaker 1: gonna live in the middle of nowhere. I'm gonna find 816 00:46:02,840 --> 00:46:05,600 Speaker 1: a nice place in the suburbs. Right. So, Showstick argues 817 00:46:05,640 --> 00:46:10,000 Speaker 1: that the ideal place where these two ideals converge uh 818 00:46:10,239 --> 00:46:12,840 Speaker 1: do exist, and these are the kind of locations we 819 00:46:12,880 --> 00:46:16,080 Speaker 1: need to look for. Um. So, there's a list of 820 00:46:16,080 --> 00:46:19,279 Speaker 1: such places quote that have the thermodynamic advantages of the 821 00:46:19,280 --> 00:46:22,240 Speaker 1: galactic nether regions but still lie in regions of high 822 00:46:22,480 --> 00:46:28,720 Speaker 1: matter density unquote. And these include places called back globules. Uh. 823 00:46:28,760 --> 00:46:33,760 Speaker 1: These are isolated dark nebulae that are relatively small in size, 824 00:46:34,200 --> 00:46:40,160 Speaker 1: offer high thermodynamic efficiency, and have a lot of interstellar matter. Huh. Interesting. 825 00:46:40,600 --> 00:46:44,800 Speaker 1: The nearest one of these, by the way, is Barnard, uh, 826 00:46:44,920 --> 00:46:47,200 Speaker 1: which I believe we're referencing in the title for this episode, 827 00:46:47,200 --> 00:46:49,640 Speaker 1: a mere five hundred light years away from us SO 828 00:46:49,800 --> 00:46:52,759 Speaker 1: shows shows. So I'm not saying there's anything there, but 829 00:46:53,040 --> 00:46:55,800 Speaker 1: it makes you think that is interesting. I know. I 830 00:46:55,800 --> 00:46:57,680 Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever heard of this criteria to 831 00:46:57,719 --> 00:47:00,360 Speaker 1: look for before. Uh So, yeah, it would. Does this 832 00:47:00,440 --> 00:47:03,200 Speaker 1: mean show Stack obviously is involved in CID. Does this 833 00:47:03,239 --> 00:47:06,000 Speaker 1: mean we've got like, uh, you know, radio listening a 834 00:47:06,120 --> 00:47:10,120 Speaker 1: tune to Barnard sixty eight right now? Um? Well, I mean, 835 00:47:10,120 --> 00:47:12,120 Speaker 1: certainly it's been ten years since this came out. So 836 00:47:12,160 --> 00:47:16,000 Speaker 1: if if if these are if these are valuable arguments, uh, 837 00:47:16,040 --> 00:47:17,640 Speaker 1: you know, I would assume they've been reflected to some 838 00:47:17,840 --> 00:47:20,840 Speaker 1: to some degree. But yeah, in this paper he contends 839 00:47:20,880 --> 00:47:22,880 Speaker 1: that said, he should, you know, continue to look at 840 00:47:22,960 --> 00:47:27,760 Speaker 1: rocky water worlds, but also at neighborhoods of hot stars, 841 00:47:27,880 --> 00:47:31,440 Speaker 1: black holes, neutron stars, bought globules, et cetera. Like it 842 00:47:31,600 --> 00:47:34,880 Speaker 1: just it. You know, we shouldn't limit ourselves as the 843 00:47:34,960 --> 00:47:38,239 Speaker 1: argument to these water worlds, because that may be where 844 00:47:38,320 --> 00:47:41,880 Speaker 1: life has to emerge from. But given this idea of 845 00:47:41,920 --> 00:47:45,560 Speaker 1: post biological life, that's not where it needs to remain. Now. 846 00:47:45,600 --> 00:47:48,640 Speaker 1: A big question that does remain, however, is what sort 847 00:47:48,640 --> 00:47:52,040 Speaker 1: of signal would such a post organic civilization produced that 848 00:47:52,120 --> 00:47:55,279 Speaker 1: we could detect. Uh, you know, they might want us 849 00:47:55,320 --> 00:47:58,880 Speaker 1: to find them, They might want to find us. But 850 00:47:59,160 --> 00:48:01,320 Speaker 1: either way, they might they might put some put something 851 00:48:01,320 --> 00:48:03,960 Speaker 1: out for us for us to find. Uh, they might 852 00:48:04,160 --> 00:48:07,240 Speaker 1: you know, not care that we can observe their dicens fears, 853 00:48:07,239 --> 00:48:10,640 Speaker 1: that sort of thing. Um, but if you know, but 854 00:48:10,640 --> 00:48:12,920 Speaker 1: but what if they don't, you know, well, then perhaps 855 00:48:13,000 --> 00:48:16,040 Speaker 1: it takes one of our own ai to you know, 856 00:48:16,080 --> 00:48:18,160 Speaker 1: reach the point where it can discern the signs of 857 00:48:18,200 --> 00:48:21,560 Speaker 1: their existence, um, and then perhaps be the ones to 858 00:48:21,680 --> 00:48:25,560 Speaker 1: reach out and make first contact machine to machine. Okay, 859 00:48:25,600 --> 00:48:27,600 Speaker 1: so we need a machine to see the gorilla in 860 00:48:27,640 --> 00:48:30,880 Speaker 1: the video coming from space. Maybe? I mean again, it 861 00:48:30,960 --> 00:48:33,560 Speaker 1: depends on what what they want if they exist and 862 00:48:33,600 --> 00:48:35,520 Speaker 1: there at this level, what do they want? Do they 863 00:48:35,560 --> 00:48:38,680 Speaker 1: want to make contact? Maybe that's the thing. Maybe again, 864 00:48:38,960 --> 00:48:42,239 Speaker 1: they know that organic beings can be messy, and they 865 00:48:42,440 --> 00:48:44,239 Speaker 1: just want to wait until we've reached the point where 866 00:48:44,280 --> 00:48:47,879 Speaker 1: their machine can call their machine. You know, I buy 867 00:48:47,920 --> 00:48:51,160 Speaker 1: that it's waiting until it doesn't have to deal with meat. Yeah, 868 00:48:51,239 --> 00:48:53,040 Speaker 1: like it doesn't want to chase this down. Just send 869 00:48:53,120 --> 00:48:56,480 Speaker 1: us the press release, UM, let us know how to 870 00:48:56,520 --> 00:48:58,040 Speaker 1: get in touch with you, and we'll set something up. 871 00:48:58,080 --> 00:49:00,719 Speaker 1: That's their whole thing. It's like waiting into Like I'm 872 00:49:00,760 --> 00:49:02,920 Speaker 1: not going to order delivery from this place until they've 873 00:49:02,960 --> 00:49:04,600 Speaker 1: got an online form. I don't want to have to 874 00:49:04,600 --> 00:49:07,759 Speaker 1: call talk to somebody, right, I'm sure it's fine. I'm 875 00:49:07,800 --> 00:49:10,560 Speaker 1: hearing great things, but get your technology sorted out first, 876 00:49:10,600 --> 00:49:13,560 Speaker 1: and then we'll begin this relationship. I've got high hopes 877 00:49:13,560 --> 00:49:15,759 Speaker 1: for this species where people are afraid to talk to 878 00:49:15,800 --> 00:49:20,600 Speaker 1: other people on the phone. I don't know, I mean, yeah, 879 00:49:20,600 --> 00:49:22,200 Speaker 1: I mean we're We're ultimately left with some of the 880 00:49:22,200 --> 00:49:25,080 Speaker 1: same questions, not only the big one, does life exists 881 00:49:25,080 --> 00:49:28,000 Speaker 1: elsewhere in the cosmos? But but again, like what would 882 00:49:28,520 --> 00:49:31,719 Speaker 1: if if it's if it's alien AI, alien superintelligence? What 883 00:49:31,800 --> 00:49:33,080 Speaker 1: are they gonna make of us? How are we going 884 00:49:33,120 --> 00:49:37,000 Speaker 1: to fit into what sort of things they do? Um? 885 00:49:37,120 --> 00:49:39,000 Speaker 1: Or would we fit in at all? Like? Maybe that's 886 00:49:39,040 --> 00:49:41,799 Speaker 1: the ultimate thing is like they just don't they don't care. 887 00:49:41,840 --> 00:49:44,359 Speaker 1: Why would they care? We're the ones obsessed with us. 888 00:49:44,680 --> 00:49:46,800 Speaker 1: They've got their own thing going on. Do you really 889 00:49:46,800 --> 00:49:49,839 Speaker 1: care what the squirrel is digging for in the yard? Well, 890 00:49:49,880 --> 00:49:54,359 Speaker 1: I mean I do, But but yeah, ultimately, do the 891 00:49:54,360 --> 00:49:56,600 Speaker 1: do the cosmic overlord's care? You know, I don't know. 892 00:49:56,760 --> 00:50:00,840 Speaker 1: Maybe not. Now shows that continues, who discuss how we 893 00:50:00,920 --> 00:50:05,480 Speaker 1: might refine our search for extraterrestrial life. Um. If you 894 00:50:05,520 --> 00:50:07,719 Speaker 1: look around for his name, you'll find that he you know, 895 00:50:07,719 --> 00:50:11,800 Speaker 1: he gives talks. He discusses set in general of the search, 896 00:50:12,239 --> 00:50:14,480 Speaker 1: how that the search itself has changed and how we 897 00:50:14,480 --> 00:50:17,000 Speaker 1: should change it, as well as sort of the societal 898 00:50:17,480 --> 00:50:21,440 Speaker 1: considerations involved. But well, one example of something has been 899 00:50:21,520 --> 00:50:26,759 Speaker 1: up to recently. UM In sept September, he had an 900 00:50:26,840 --> 00:50:30,240 Speaker 1: article titled set the Argument for Artifacts Search is published 901 00:50:30,239 --> 00:50:33,760 Speaker 1: in the International Journal of Astrobiology, and in this article 902 00:50:34,000 --> 00:50:36,280 Speaker 1: he argues that while most of the search for extrater 903 00:50:36,400 --> 00:50:40,120 Speaker 1: terrestrial intelligence has focused on the search for quote, artificially 904 00:50:40,200 --> 00:50:44,240 Speaker 1: generated electromagnetic signals, it's artifacts that we should be spending 905 00:50:44,239 --> 00:50:46,840 Speaker 1: more time on, or at least more time than we 906 00:50:46,840 --> 00:50:49,000 Speaker 1: we are. And this is the idea here, is that 907 00:50:49,120 --> 00:50:52,480 Speaker 1: persistent transmissions, you know, sort of we're here, we're here, 908 00:50:52,560 --> 00:50:56,120 Speaker 1: signals from beyond these require energy. And then on top 909 00:50:56,160 --> 00:50:58,960 Speaker 1: of that the aliens and question should they exist. They 910 00:50:59,040 --> 00:51:02,440 Speaker 1: might be exceed ely cryptic, or they might you know, 911 00:51:02,520 --> 00:51:05,880 Speaker 1: they might be embarrassed for us, as we've discussed, or 912 00:51:06,120 --> 00:51:09,160 Speaker 1: they might just be ignorant of our existence and that 913 00:51:09,320 --> 00:51:11,359 Speaker 1: you know, they simply don't know that we exist and 914 00:51:11,560 --> 00:51:15,920 Speaker 1: likewise don't care. UM, so perhaps we should be looking 915 00:51:16,000 --> 00:51:20,360 Speaker 1: more for artifacts, or specifically evidence of artifacts. I'm to 916 00:51:20,440 --> 00:51:24,000 Speaker 1: understand waste heat uh certainly counts as something we'd be 917 00:51:24,040 --> 00:51:27,040 Speaker 1: looking for in an artifacts search, to search for something 918 00:51:27,360 --> 00:51:31,919 Speaker 1: created or something that was once created by extra drest 919 00:51:32,000 --> 00:51:34,280 Speaker 1: real life. Oh and this came up in the previous 920 00:51:34,280 --> 00:51:37,400 Speaker 1: episode when we talked about Dyson spheares, like one possible 921 00:51:37,440 --> 00:51:39,560 Speaker 1: way to look for them is to look for a 922 00:51:39,560 --> 00:51:43,640 Speaker 1: place where you're not seeing much electromagnetic radiation accept heat, 923 00:51:43,800 --> 00:51:46,440 Speaker 1: and the idea there is that maybe there's a sphere 924 00:51:46,480 --> 00:51:49,280 Speaker 1: around a star that's harvesting almost all of its usable 925 00:51:49,400 --> 00:51:52,279 Speaker 1: energy and pretty much the only thing that's coming out 926 00:51:52,320 --> 00:51:54,440 Speaker 1: the other side of it is just the waste product 927 00:51:54,520 --> 00:51:56,719 Speaker 1: of their of their processing, which is heat. It's the 928 00:51:56,880 --> 00:51:59,840 Speaker 1: computer fan blowing out into space. But yeah, it's ultimately 929 00:51:59,880 --> 00:52:02,800 Speaker 1: an interesting argument, like, you know, how much effort should 930 00:52:02,800 --> 00:52:07,400 Speaker 1: we be putting into picking up those signals of existence 931 00:52:08,200 --> 00:52:12,879 Speaker 1: versus sort of perhaps more obscure evidence of the existence, 932 00:52:12,960 --> 00:52:16,480 Speaker 1: you know, especially again you have something out there is 933 00:52:16,520 --> 00:52:20,120 Speaker 1: maybe less inclined to put out that that I am 934 00:52:20,160 --> 00:52:22,680 Speaker 1: here signal, or you know, to even care or know 935 00:52:22,719 --> 00:52:25,640 Speaker 1: of our existence to begin with. Yeah, I could be wrong, 936 00:52:25,680 --> 00:52:27,120 Speaker 1: but I think I'm right about this. Like, once you 937 00:52:27,160 --> 00:52:29,560 Speaker 1: get a certain distance away from the Earth, you know, 938 00:52:29,920 --> 00:52:32,600 Speaker 1: some number of light years away, at a certain point, 939 00:52:32,719 --> 00:52:38,399 Speaker 1: like any any omnidirectionally transmitted radio signal would become so 940 00:52:38,520 --> 00:52:40,880 Speaker 1: weak by the time it reaches us that we really 941 00:52:40,920 --> 00:52:43,920 Speaker 1: probably wouldn't notice it, and so like to really notice 942 00:52:43,960 --> 00:52:46,319 Speaker 1: a signal from an alien civilization, it would probably need 943 00:52:46,320 --> 00:52:50,400 Speaker 1: to be something that is directionally beamed our way on purpose. 944 00:52:51,000 --> 00:52:53,520 Speaker 1: And that that also requires a lot of assumptions about 945 00:52:53,560 --> 00:52:56,960 Speaker 1: what's going on with that alien civilization. Yeah, and maybe 946 00:52:57,000 --> 00:52:59,799 Speaker 1: maybe it'll happen, but then again maybe it won't. But yeah, 947 00:53:00,120 --> 00:53:04,120 Speaker 1: just artifacts by products of previous existence, whether that's physical 948 00:53:04,200 --> 00:53:07,080 Speaker 1: objects or or waste signatures like heat that could be 949 00:53:07,160 --> 00:53:09,399 Speaker 1: around for a long time, depending up, you know, no 950 00:53:09,440 --> 00:53:13,080 Speaker 1: matter what the intentions of the civilization are. Well, this 951 00:53:13,120 --> 00:53:15,319 Speaker 1: has been fun, Rob, Yeah, this has been a fun one. Yeah. 952 00:53:15,360 --> 00:53:17,839 Speaker 1: So obviously we'd love to hear from everyone out there. 953 00:53:17,880 --> 00:53:20,239 Speaker 1: First of all, we mentioned, you know, this is the 954 00:53:20,280 --> 00:53:23,360 Speaker 1: domain of science fiction. Of science fiction is considered a 955 00:53:23,360 --> 00:53:25,880 Speaker 1: lot of these questions for for decades. So if there 956 00:53:25,920 --> 00:53:30,239 Speaker 1: are particular examples, uh, let us know examples so that 957 00:53:30,239 --> 00:53:33,160 Speaker 1: that touch on some of these themes and ideas. Uh, 958 00:53:33,200 --> 00:53:35,759 Speaker 1: you know, let us know if there is that that 959 00:53:35,760 --> 00:53:39,399 Speaker 1: that that that corporate alien sci fi Reagan era thing 960 00:53:39,440 --> 00:53:42,839 Speaker 1: that we were considering, you know probably exists. Uh, if 961 00:53:42,880 --> 00:53:44,680 Speaker 1: you have an I D for it, let us know. 962 00:53:44,760 --> 00:53:47,640 Speaker 1: We'd love to hear from you. In the meantime, if 963 00:53:47,680 --> 00:53:49,640 Speaker 1: you would like to listen to other episodes of Stuff 964 00:53:49,680 --> 00:53:51,040 Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind, you can find the Stuff to 965 00:53:51,040 --> 00:53:53,719 Speaker 1: Blow your Mind podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts, 966 00:53:54,080 --> 00:53:56,920 Speaker 1: and in that feed you'll find core episodes. On Tuesdays 967 00:53:56,920 --> 00:53:59,520 Speaker 1: and Thursday. On Friday, we do a little weird house cinema. 968 00:53:59,560 --> 00:54:01,840 Speaker 1: Let's just you know, a consideration of a weird film. 969 00:54:02,520 --> 00:54:05,200 Speaker 1: We do a little listener mail usually on Mondays and 970 00:54:05,400 --> 00:54:08,520 Speaker 1: on Wednesdays. That's when we we usually have artifact unless 971 00:54:08,520 --> 00:54:11,200 Speaker 1: its being preempted. Huge thanks as always to our excellent 972 00:54:11,239 --> 00:54:13,800 Speaker 1: audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to 973 00:54:13,840 --> 00:54:16,120 Speaker 1: get in touch with us with feedback on this episode 974 00:54:16,200 --> 00:54:18,400 Speaker 1: or any other, to suggest a topic for the future, 975 00:54:18,560 --> 00:54:21,040 Speaker 1: just to say hello, you can email us at contact 976 00:54:21,120 --> 00:54:30,759 Speaker 1: at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to 977 00:54:30,760 --> 00:54:33,560 Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind's production of I Heart Radio. For more 978 00:54:33,560 --> 00:54:36,160 Speaker 1: podcasts for My Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, 979 00:54:36,360 --> 00:54:51,640 Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.