WEBVTT - The Ghost in the Machine 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:16.400 Hey there, and welcome to text Stuff. I'm your scary 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:20.720 but not Harry host Jonathan Strickland, executive producer with I 0:00:20.880 --> 0:00:24.200 Heart Radio and how the tech are You. We are 0:00:24.280 --> 0:00:27.600 continuing our spooky episode series and the lead up to 0:00:27.640 --> 0:00:32.839 Halloween twenty twenty two. Apologies if you're from the future 0:00:33.200 --> 0:00:38.360 listening back on this episode. That's why the bizarre theme 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:42.120 is popping up. We've already talked recently about stuff like 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:47.040 vampire power and zombie computers where I'm really grasping at 0:00:47.040 --> 0:00:51.680 tenuous connections to horror stuff for tech. But now it's 0:00:51.680 --> 0:00:56.720 time to tackle the ghost in the machine. These days, 0:00:57.360 --> 0:01:01.000 that phrase is frequently bandied about with relation to stuff 0:01:01.040 --> 0:01:06.040 like artificial intelligence, But the the man who coined the 0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:10.560 phrase itself was Gilbert Ryle in nineteen nine, and he 0:01:10.720 --> 0:01:15.000 wasn't talking about artificial intelligence at all. He was talking about, 0:01:15.280 --> 0:01:19.479 you know, real intelligence, and he was critiquing a seventeenth 0:01:19.520 --> 0:01:24.720 century philosopher's argument about the human mind. That philosopher was 0:01:24.800 --> 0:01:30.560 Renee des Cartes, who famously wrote cogito ergo sum I drink. Therefore, 0:01:30.600 --> 0:01:33.679 I am sorry it's gonna be impossible for me to 0:01:33.680 --> 0:01:39.120 talk about philosophers without quoting Monty Python because I'm a dork. Okay, No, 0:01:39.319 --> 0:01:43.240 cogito ergo sum actually means I think, therefore I am 0:01:43.360 --> 0:01:46.800 or that's how we interpret it. But that wasn't really 0:01:46.840 --> 0:01:50.919 the bit that Gilbert Ryle was all riled up about. 0:01:51.480 --> 0:01:56.800 See de Cartes believed in dualism. Now, I don't mean 0:01:56.920 --> 0:01:59.400 that he believed in showing up at dawn to sword 0:01:59.480 --> 0:02:02.840 fight other philosophers. Though, if someone wants to make a 0:02:02.840 --> 0:02:07.640 philosopher version of Highlander, I am down with that and 0:02:07.640 --> 0:02:11.200 I will back your Kickstarter. No. No, deke Hart believed 0:02:11.680 --> 0:02:15.760 that the mind and you know, consciousness and sentience and 0:02:15.760 --> 0:02:19.720 all this kind of stuff are separate from the actual 0:02:20.280 --> 0:02:24.520 gray matter that resides in our noggains. So, in other words, 0:02:25.000 --> 0:02:28.440 intelligence and awareness and all that other stuff that makes 0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:34.440 you you exists independently of your physical brain. That there 0:02:34.560 --> 0:02:39.120 is this this component that is beyond the physical. Now, 0:02:39.240 --> 0:02:43.240 Ryle referred to this concept as the ghost in the machine, 0:02:43.840 --> 0:02:47.800 that somehow all the things that represent you are you know, 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:51.919 to too great effect, ethereally independent of the brain itself. 0:02:52.320 --> 0:02:56.520 And Ryle rejects that notion. And you know, Ryle appears 0:02:56.520 --> 0:02:59.800 to be right. We know this because there are plenty 0:02:59.840 --> 0:03:03.919 of case studies focusing on people who have experienced brain injuries, 0:03:04.280 --> 0:03:08.560 either from some physical calamity or a disease or something 0:03:08.560 --> 0:03:13.800 along those lines. And these events often transform people and 0:03:13.919 --> 0:03:19.639 change their behaviors and their underlying personalities. So the damage 0:03:19.680 --> 0:03:23.240 to the physical stuff inside our heads can change who 0:03:23.320 --> 0:03:27.320 we are as people. That seems to dismiss this concept 0:03:27.480 --> 0:03:31.520 of dualism, that the mind and the brain are not 0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:38.040 separate entities. Take that decartes anyway. That's where we get 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:41.040 the phrase the ghost in the machine. The machine in 0:03:41.080 --> 0:03:44.720 this case is a biological one in the original sense 0:03:44.760 --> 0:03:49.120 of the phrase. In nineteen sixty seven, Arthur Kustler he 0:03:49.200 --> 0:03:52.200 wrote a book called The Ghost in the Machine and 0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:54.680 or at least it was published in nineteen sixty seven, 0:03:54.760 --> 0:04:00.560 and he was a Hungarian born Austrian educated journalist. So 0:04:00.720 --> 0:04:04.560 his book The Ghost of the Machine was an attempt 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:09.880 to examine and explain humanity's tendency towards violence, as well 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:13.360 as going over the mind body problem that Ryle had 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:15.920 addressed when he coined the phrase to begin with in 0:04:16.040 --> 0:04:19.280 nineteen forty nine. All right, then, flash forward a couple 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:22.880 of decades one and we get the title of what 0:04:22.960 --> 0:04:26.760 was the fourth studio album of the Police, you know, 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:31.160 Sting and the Police. Now I say this in case 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:33.680 you were thinking that Sting and Company were naming their 0:04:33.720 --> 0:04:37.320 album off the technological use of the term ghost of 0:04:37.360 --> 0:04:40.520 the Machine, but they were not. Sting good Old Gordy 0:04:40.880 --> 0:04:44.599 had read Cussler's book and he took the album's title 0:04:44.760 --> 0:04:48.400 from the book title. So in case you're wondering, that's 0:04:48.400 --> 0:04:51.119 also the album that brought us songs like every little 0:04:51.160 --> 0:04:55.160 thing she does is magic and spirits in the material world. 0:04:56.120 --> 0:05:01.120 For a really recent exploration of due all is um well, 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:04.599 arguably it's more than dualism. I guess you can actually 0:05:04.600 --> 0:05:09.839 watch Pixars Inside Out. That's a film that solidified my 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:13.680 reputation as an unfeeling monster among my friends because I 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:16.880 didn't feel anything when bing Bong meets his final fate. 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:19.400 I just couldn't care. I mean, he's not even real 0:05:19.560 --> 0:05:22.960 in the context of the film, let alone in my world, 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:27.200 so why would I? Okay, never mind? Anyway. In Inside Out, 0:05:27.680 --> 0:05:32.799 we learned that our emotions are actual anthropomorphic entities living 0:05:32.839 --> 0:05:38.080 inside our heads that share the controls to our behavior 0:05:38.160 --> 0:05:41.760 that we are in effect governed by our emotions, and 0:05:41.880 --> 0:05:45.600 our emotions in turn are the responsibilities of entities like 0:05:46.200 --> 0:05:50.919 joy and anger and disgust. They cart probably would have 0:05:50.960 --> 0:05:55.000 been thrilled, and Ralph likely would have rolled his eyes. Anyway, 0:05:55.000 --> 0:05:58.039 the trope of having a little voice inside your head 0:05:58.640 --> 0:06:02.680 that is somehow separate from you and also you is 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:05.680 a really popular one. I always think of Homer Simpson, 0:06:05.960 --> 0:06:09.000 who will often find himself arguing with his own brain 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:13.640 for comedic effect. It's another example of dualism in popular culture. 0:06:14.000 --> 0:06:17.719 But the idiom the ghost of the machine survived its 0:06:17.760 --> 0:06:22.359 initial philosophical and journalistic trappings, and now folks tend to 0:06:22.480 --> 0:06:25.920 use it to describe stuff that's actually in the technological world. 0:06:26.160 --> 0:06:29.320 We're talking about machines, as in the stuff that we 0:06:29.400 --> 0:06:32.040 humans make, as opposed to the stuff that we are 0:06:33.360 --> 0:06:37.200 generally in tech. The phrase describes the situation in which 0:06:37.240 --> 0:06:41.839 a technological device or construct behaves in a way counter 0:06:41.960 --> 0:06:45.960 to what we expect or want. Uh. At least that 0:06:46.040 --> 0:06:47.800 was the way it was used for quite some time. 0:06:47.960 --> 0:06:51.359 So for example, let's say that you've got yourself a 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:55.720 robotic vacuum cleaner, and you've set the schedule so that 0:06:55.800 --> 0:06:58.720 it's only going to run early in the afternoon. And 0:06:58.760 --> 0:07:02.560 then one fight, you wake up hearing the worrying and 0:07:02.680 --> 0:07:05.680 bumping of your room ba as it aimlessly wanders your 0:07:05.720 --> 0:07:09.800 home in search of dirt and dust to consume, and 0:07:09.840 --> 0:07:12.040 you spend a few sleepy moments wondering if there's some 0:07:12.120 --> 0:07:15.920 sort of conscientious intruder who's made their way into your 0:07:15.960 --> 0:07:19.760 house and now they're tidying up before you realize, no, 0:07:19.920 --> 0:07:23.760 it's that darn robot vacuum cleaner. There's a ghost in 0:07:23.880 --> 0:07:26.600 the machine. It's decided on its own to come awake 0:07:26.640 --> 0:07:30.000 and start working. Now, alternatively, maybe you just goofed up 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:32.040 when you create the schedule and you mixed up your A, 0:07:32.240 --> 0:07:35.560 M S and your PMS. That's also a possibility. But 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:38.840 you know, sometimes technology does behave in a way that 0:07:38.960 --> 0:07:42.880 we don't expect. Either there's a malfunction or it just 0:07:43.200 --> 0:07:47.080 encounters some sort of scenario that it was not designed for, 0:07:47.200 --> 0:07:50.040 and so the result it produces is not the one 0:07:50.120 --> 0:07:53.840 we want, and we tend to try and kind of 0:07:53.920 --> 0:07:57.040 cover that up with this. This blanket explanation of ghosts 0:07:57.040 --> 0:08:00.280 in the machine kind of stands as a placeholder until 0:08:00.280 --> 0:08:04.160 we can really suss out what's going on underneath. Programmers 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:07.320 sometimes use the phrase ghost in the machine to describe 0:08:07.400 --> 0:08:11.600 moments where you get something unexpected while you're coding, Like 0:08:11.640 --> 0:08:14.480 you get an unexpected result, like you've coded something to 0:08:14.560 --> 0:08:19.120 produce a specific outcome and something else happens instead. So 0:08:20.360 --> 0:08:24.200 the programmer didn't intend for this result to happen, and 0:08:24.280 --> 0:08:28.080 so therefore the cause must be external, right, It's got 0:08:28.080 --> 0:08:30.840 to be some sort of ghost of the machine that's 0:08:30.880 --> 0:08:33.360 causing this to go wrong. Now I'm joshing a bit here. 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:37.160 Of course, Usually this is a way for a programmer 0:08:37.200 --> 0:08:39.439 to kind of acknowledge that things are not going to plan, 0:08:40.120 --> 0:08:42.439 and that they need to go back and look over 0:08:42.480 --> 0:08:45.160 their code much more closely to find out what's going on. 0:08:45.240 --> 0:08:49.480 Where did things go wrong? Does encoding all it takes 0:08:49.559 --> 0:08:52.720 is like a skipped step where you know you just 0:08:52.960 --> 0:08:56.080 you just missed a thing and you you went on 0:08:56.080 --> 0:08:59.760 one step beyond where you thought you were, or maybe 0:08:59.760 --> 0:09:02.400 you may to typo you got some missed key strokes 0:09:02.440 --> 0:09:04.840 in there. That can be all it takes to make 0:09:04.920 --> 0:09:07.280 a program misbehave, and so then you have to hunt 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:10.560 down the bugs they're causing the problem. But you know, 0:09:10.640 --> 0:09:13.319 if a program is acting very oddly, you might call 0:09:13.400 --> 0:09:17.559 it a ghost of the machine scenario. Now, I'm not 0:09:17.679 --> 0:09:21.280 sure about the timeline for when folks in the tech 0:09:21.320 --> 0:09:24.920 space began to appropriate the phrase ghost in the machine 0:09:25.000 --> 0:09:27.760 for their work, because when it comes to stuff like this, 0:09:28.320 --> 0:09:31.719 you're really entering the world of folklore, and folklore is 0:09:31.800 --> 0:09:36.080 largely an oral tradition, where you are passing ideas along 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:39.560 one person to the next, speaking about it. There's not 0:09:39.600 --> 0:09:43.760 necessarily a firm written record, at least not one where 0:09:43.800 --> 0:09:46.160 you can point to something and say this is where 0:09:46.200 --> 0:09:49.280 it began, not like Ryle's version of the phrase goes 0:09:49.360 --> 0:09:52.120 to the machine itself, which was published, so we can 0:09:52.160 --> 0:09:54.960 point to that. They're saying, this is where the phrase 0:09:55.000 --> 0:09:57.800 comes from. This would be what Richard Dawkins would refer 0:09:57.840 --> 0:10:01.640 to as a meme, a little nugget of culture that 0:10:01.720 --> 0:10:06.360 gets passed on from person to person. But it also 0:10:06.480 --> 0:10:11.120 has been used in literature to refer to technological situations. 0:10:11.600 --> 0:10:15.880 Arthur C. Clark, whom I've referenced many times in this show, 0:10:16.160 --> 0:10:19.240 as he's the guy who explained that any sufficiently advanced 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:23.920 technology is indistinguishable from magic. He also used the phrase 0:10:24.240 --> 0:10:28.440 ghost in the Machine to talk about AI. Specifically, he 0:10:28.600 --> 0:10:31.480 used it in his follow up to his novel, his 0:10:31.520 --> 0:10:34.800 work of fiction, two thousand one, A Space Odyssey. The 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:39.400 follow up is called, fittingly enough, two thousand ten Odyssey to. 0:10:40.679 --> 0:10:45.480 Chapter forty two of two thousand ten is titled the 0:10:45.559 --> 0:10:48.559 Ghost in the Machine, and the focal point for that 0:10:48.640 --> 0:10:54.040 chapter is characters discussing how that's the AI system from 0:10:54.080 --> 0:10:56.760 two thousand one that caused all the trouble. So quick 0:10:56.840 --> 0:10:58.840 recap of two thousand one for those of you not 0:10:58.920 --> 0:11:02.360 familiar with the story, UH and two thousand and one. 0:11:02.440 --> 0:11:05.199 The film, the Stanley Kubrick film gets pretty loosey goosey, 0:11:05.280 --> 0:11:08.120 So we're just gonna focus on the main narrative. Here. 0:11:08.520 --> 0:11:12.880 You have a crew aboard a spacecraft, an American spacecraft 0:11:12.920 --> 0:11:17.280 called Discovery one, which is on its way towards Jupiter. Now, 0:11:17.320 --> 0:11:21.680 the ship has a really sophisticated computer system called HOW 0:11:21.880 --> 0:11:26.600 nine thousand that controls nearly everything on board. UH. Also 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:30.520 fun little trivia effect, how h L means that the 0:11:30.520 --> 0:11:35.040 initials are each one letter off from IBM, though Arthur C. 0:11:35.040 --> 0:11:39.720 Clark would claim that that was not intentional anyway. How 0:11:40.400 --> 0:11:43.960 begins to act erratically in the mission. At one point, 0:11:44.000 --> 0:11:47.400 How insists there's a malfunction in a system that appears 0:11:47.440 --> 0:11:51.880 to be perfectly functional, that it's working just fine. Then 0:11:51.960 --> 0:11:56.040 How systematically begins to eliminate the crew after learning they 0:11:56.040 --> 0:11:59.520 plan to disconnect the computer system because they suspect something's 0:11:59.520 --> 0:12:03.600 going wrong. How figures out that plan by monitoring a 0:12:03.600 --> 0:12:07.480 conversation that a couple of crew members have in a 0:12:07.679 --> 0:12:11.199 room where there are no microphones. So How can't listen 0:12:12.000 --> 0:12:14.960 in on this conversation, But How is able to direct 0:12:15.000 --> 0:12:17.840 a video feed to that room and is able to 0:12:17.920 --> 0:12:20.880 read the lips of the crew members as they talk 0:12:20.960 --> 0:12:25.679 about their plan. So How continues to try and wipe 0:12:25.720 --> 0:12:28.880 everybody out, and he explains or it I shouldn't give 0:12:28.920 --> 0:12:33.800 him a gender. How explains that the computer systems being 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:37.160 turned off would jeopardize the mission, and How cannot allow 0:12:37.200 --> 0:12:40.800 that to happen. How's prime directive is to make certain 0:12:40.840 --> 0:12:43.840 the mission as a success, so anything that would threaten 0:12:43.920 --> 0:12:47.120 its own existence has to be eliminated. There's also the 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:51.000 implication that How does not want to cease to exist, 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:55.200 that How has a personal motivation beyond seeing the mission 0:12:55.240 --> 0:12:58.760 to completion, and so How has no choice but to 0:12:58.840 --> 0:13:01.319 kill everyone. It's not that Al wants to murder everyone, 0:13:01.440 --> 0:13:03.560 is just that in order to complete the mission, that's 0:13:03.600 --> 0:13:07.520 the only outcome that makes sense. Eventually, one of the crew, 0:13:07.840 --> 0:13:12.240 Dave Bowman, manages to turn off How and How wonders allowed. 0:13:12.360 --> 0:13:17.439 What will happen afterward? Will its consciousness continue once its 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:23.240 circuits are powered down? Will I dream? It? Says? Well? Anyway? 0:13:23.240 --> 0:13:26.439 In Odyssey Too, you now have this group of astronauts 0:13:26.480 --> 0:13:31.920 and cosmonauts in a Soviet American joint effort that are 0:13:32.440 --> 0:13:36.960 trying to figure out what happened with How. Was there 0:13:37.200 --> 0:13:42.480 something inherently flawed in How's programming? Did some external element 0:13:42.600 --> 0:13:48.440 cause how to malfunction? Did How's apparent consciousness emerge spontaneously 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:51.720 all on its own? Was it all just a sophisticated 0:13:51.720 --> 0:13:55.200 trick and How never really had any sort of consciousness? 0:13:55.240 --> 0:13:57.720 It only appeared to. So the crew are kind of 0:13:57.800 --> 0:14:01.360 left to ponder this themselves. They don't have any easy answers. 0:14:02.040 --> 0:14:05.280 That's just one example of the ghost of the machine 0:14:05.320 --> 0:14:09.480 concept being handled in entertainment. When we come back, I'll 0:14:09.480 --> 0:14:12.640 talk about a different one. But first, let's take this 0:14:12.760 --> 0:14:24.880 quick break. Okay, Before the break, I talked about Arthur C. 0:14:24.880 --> 0:14:28.600 Clark and his work with the concept of ghosts of 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:32.520 the machine. Let's now leap over to Isaac Asimov, or 0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:36.040 at least an adaptation of Asimov's work. So the film 0:14:36.200 --> 0:14:40.120 version of I Robot, which really bears only a passing 0:14:40.160 --> 0:14:45.240 resemblance to the short stories that Isaac Asimov wrote that 0:14:45.360 --> 0:14:49.080 we're also collected in a book called I Robot, uses 0:14:49.160 --> 0:14:52.600 the phrase ghost of the machine. Isaac Asimov, by the way, 0:14:52.600 --> 0:14:54.800 in case you're not familiar with his work, he's the 0:14:54.800 --> 0:14:59.680 guy who also proposed the basic laws of robotics, which 0:15:00.200 --> 0:15:03.640 are pretty famous as well. So in the film, the 0:15:03.760 --> 0:15:08.120 character Dr Alfred Lanning, who actually does appear in asthmov stories, 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:11.240 but he's a very different version than the one that 0:15:11.280 --> 0:15:14.720 appears in the film. He says in a voiceover quote, 0:15:15.120 --> 0:15:19.200 there have always been ghosts in the machine, random segments 0:15:19.200 --> 0:15:22.880 of code that have grouped together to form unexpected protocols. 0:15:23.240 --> 0:15:28.880 Unanticipated these free radicals in gender, questions of free will, creativity, 0:15:28.960 --> 0:15:31.640 and even the nature of what we might call the soul. 0:15:32.200 --> 0:15:35.680 Why is it that when some robots are left in darkness, 0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:38.440 they will seek out the light? Why is it that 0:15:38.480 --> 0:15:41.320 when robots are stored in an empty space, they will 0:15:41.320 --> 0:15:45.040 group together rather than stand alone. How do we explain 0:15:45.120 --> 0:15:49.400 this behavior random segments of code or is it something more? 0:15:49.920 --> 0:15:54.360 When does a perceptual schematic become consciousness? When does a 0:15:54.480 --> 0:15:58.880 difference engine become the search for truth? When does a 0:15:58.960 --> 0:16:02.680 personality simulate should become the bitter mote of a soul? 0:16:03.720 --> 0:16:07.520 End quote. There's some fun references in there too. Difference engine, 0:16:07.520 --> 0:16:12.920 for example, refers back to Charles Babbage, who created analytical 0:16:13.040 --> 0:16:22.120 engines that predate the concept of electrical computers. Now this idea, this, 0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:26.800 this idea of of consciousness or the appearance of consciousness 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:30.080 emerging out of technology, is one that often pops up 0:16:30.080 --> 0:16:34.240 in discussions about artificial intelligence, even within our world outside 0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:37.160 of fiction, though usually we talk about this on a 0:16:37.160 --> 0:16:42.320 more hypothetical basis, unless you're Blake Lemoyne or Lemois, the 0:16:42.360 --> 0:16:46.400 former Google engineer who maintains that Google's language model for 0:16:46.480 --> 0:16:51.480 dialogue applications a K A lambda is sentient. That's a 0:16:51.520 --> 0:16:54.680 claim that most other people dispute, By the way, so 0:16:55.760 --> 0:16:58.880 maybe I'll do another episode about it to really kind 0:16:58.880 --> 0:17:02.960 of dig into it. But Lemoyne or LEMOI and I 0:17:03.000 --> 0:17:05.480 apologize because I don't know how his last name is 0:17:05.640 --> 0:17:09.360 is pronounced. Has said a few times that he believes 0:17:09.840 --> 0:17:14.160 that this particular program has gained sentience. But it brings 0:17:14.240 --> 0:17:17.280 us to another favorite topic among tech fans, which is, 0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:21.359 of course, the Turing test. All right, So the Turing 0:17:21.440 --> 0:17:24.719 test was Alan Turing, who he was kind of like 0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:27.600 the father of computer science in many ways. It was 0:17:27.720 --> 0:17:33.439 his response to the question can machines think? Turing's answer 0:17:33.600 --> 0:17:36.200 was that question has no meaning, and you r s 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:40.280 L E person goodbye. I am, of course paraphrasing, but 0:17:40.560 --> 0:17:43.560 as a sort of thought experiment, Turing proposed taking an 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:47.800 older concept called the imitation game and applying it to machines, 0:17:48.119 --> 0:17:53.359 really to demonstrate how meaningless the question of can machines think? Is? So, 0:17:53.960 --> 0:17:56.760 what is the imitation game? Well, the name kind of 0:17:56.760 --> 0:17:59.159 gives it away. It's a game in which you have 0:17:59.200 --> 0:18:02.880 a player who asks at least two different people questions 0:18:02.920 --> 0:18:07.040 to determine which of them is an imitator. So, for example, 0:18:07.320 --> 0:18:09.760 you could have an imitation game in which one of 0:18:09.800 --> 0:18:12.800 the people is a sailor and the other is not 0:18:12.960 --> 0:18:16.960 a sailor, and the player would take turns asking each 0:18:17.000 --> 0:18:19.840 person questions to try and suss out which one is 0:18:19.920 --> 0:18:23.320 actually a sailor and which one is merely pretending to 0:18:23.440 --> 0:18:26.080 be a sailor. So the game depends both on the 0:18:26.119 --> 0:18:30.200 strength of the imitator's skill of deception as well as 0:18:30.240 --> 0:18:33.200 the player's ability to come up with really good questions. 0:18:33.760 --> 0:18:35.800 And you could do this with all sorts of scenarios, 0:18:35.840 --> 0:18:38.240 and indeed there are tons of game shows that use 0:18:38.280 --> 0:18:42.439 this very premise. Turings thought experiment was to create a 0:18:42.560 --> 0:18:46.480 version of this in which a player would present questions 0:18:46.480 --> 0:18:51.280 to two other entities, one a human and one a computer. 0:18:52.000 --> 0:18:55.520 The player would only know these entities as X and Y, 0:18:55.800 --> 0:18:58.160 so they could ask questions of X, and they could 0:18:58.200 --> 0:19:01.720 ask questions of why and it replies, So the player 0:19:01.760 --> 0:19:05.200 would not be able to see or hear the other entities. 0:19:05.480 --> 0:19:08.199 All questions would have to be done in writing, you know, 0:19:08.240 --> 0:19:12.399 for example, typed and printed out, and at the end 0:19:12.440 --> 0:19:14.800 of the interview session, the player would be tasked with 0:19:14.880 --> 0:19:17.840 deciding if X was a machine or a human, or 0:19:17.880 --> 0:19:21.119 if why was the machine or the human. Touring was 0:19:21.160 --> 0:19:25.880 suggesting that as computers and systems get more sophisticated, and 0:19:25.960 --> 0:19:29.680 things like chat programs get better at processing natural language 0:19:29.680 --> 0:19:33.080 and formulating responses, though that was a little past during 0:19:33.280 --> 0:19:36.560 time that it would be increasingly difficult for a person 0:19:36.600 --> 0:19:39.919 to determine if any given entity on the other end 0:19:39.920 --> 0:19:43.080 of a chat session was actually a person or a machine, 0:19:43.720 --> 0:19:46.959 And Touring also rather cheekly suggests that we might as 0:19:46.960 --> 0:19:50.680 well assume the machine has consciousness at that point, because 0:19:50.720 --> 0:19:54.359 when you meet another human being, you assume that that 0:19:54.520 --> 0:19:59.000 other human being possesses consciousness, even though you're incapable of 0:19:59.000 --> 0:20:02.879 stepping into that person's actual experience. So you can't take 0:20:03.040 --> 0:20:05.159 over that person and find out, oh, yes, they do 0:20:05.240 --> 0:20:09.359 have consciousness, You just assume they do. So if you 0:20:09.400 --> 0:20:11.760 and I were to meet, I assume you would believe 0:20:11.800 --> 0:20:15.320 I am in fact sentient and conscious even on my 0:20:15.400 --> 0:20:18.600 bad days. So if we're willing to agree to this 0:20:19.480 --> 0:20:24.320 while simultaneously being unable to actually experience and therefore prove it, 0:20:25.080 --> 0:20:28.520 then should we not grant the same consideration to machines 0:20:28.840 --> 0:20:32.600 that give off the appearance of sentience and consciousness. Do 0:20:32.680 --> 0:20:35.159 we have to prove it or do we just go 0:20:35.200 --> 0:20:38.240 ahead and treat them as if they are, because that's 0:20:38.240 --> 0:20:40.560 what we would do if it was a human. Now, 0:20:40.560 --> 0:20:43.240 Touring was being a bit dismissive about the concept of 0:20:43.280 --> 0:20:47.440 machines thinking. His point was that they might get very 0:20:47.560 --> 0:20:51.479 very good at simulating thinking, and that might well be 0:20:51.600 --> 0:20:54.040 enough for us to just go ahead and say that's 0:20:54.080 --> 0:20:57.040 what they're doing. Even if you could, you know, push 0:20:57.160 --> 0:21:00.280 machines through the finest of sieves and find not one 0:21:00.480 --> 0:21:04.880 grain of actual consciousness within it. Now, it doesn't hurt 0:21:05.480 --> 0:21:09.119 that defining consciousness, even in human terms, is something that 0:21:09.160 --> 0:21:11.520 we can't really do, or at least we don't have 0:21:11.560 --> 0:21:16.399 a unifying definition that everybody agrees upon. Sometimes we define 0:21:16.440 --> 0:21:20.400 consciousness by what it doesn't include rather than what it is. 0:21:21.000 --> 0:21:24.200 This is why I get antsy in philosophical discussions, because 0:21:25.000 --> 0:21:28.679 being sort of a pragmatic dullard myself, it's hard for 0:21:28.720 --> 0:21:31.720 me to keep up. But let's jump ahead and talk 0:21:31.760 --> 0:21:35.480 about a related concept. This is also one that I've 0:21:35.520 --> 0:21:38.760 covered a few times on tech stuff that also points 0:21:38.840 --> 0:21:42.560 to this ghost in the machine idea. And this is 0:21:42.600 --> 0:21:46.879 the argument against machine consciousness and strong AI. It is 0:21:46.920 --> 0:21:51.240 called the Chinese Room John Searle a philosopher but for 0:21:51.440 --> 0:21:54.520 this argument back in nineteen eighty and that argument goes 0:21:54.640 --> 0:21:58.880 something like this. Let's say we've got ourselves a computer, 0:21:59.480 --> 0:22:02.320 and this can eater can accept sheets of paper that 0:22:02.440 --> 0:22:05.919 have Chinese characters written on the paper, and the computer 0:22:05.960 --> 0:22:08.480 can then produce new sheets of paper. It can print 0:22:08.520 --> 0:22:12.040 out sheets that are also covered in Chinese characters, that 0:22:12.160 --> 0:22:15.280 are in response to the input sheets that were fed 0:22:15.320 --> 0:22:20.560 to it. These responses are sophisticated, they are relevant. They're 0:22:20.600 --> 0:22:24.479 good enough that a native Chinese speaker would be certain 0:22:24.600 --> 0:22:28.440 that someone fluent in Chinese was creating the responses, someone 0:22:28.480 --> 0:22:32.480 who understood what was being fed to it was producing 0:22:32.720 --> 0:22:36.399 the output. So, in other words, this system would pass 0:22:36.560 --> 0:22:40.960 the Turing test. But does that mean the system actually 0:22:41.080 --> 0:22:48.440 understands Chinese. Cele's argument is no, it doesn't. He says, 0:22:48.480 --> 0:22:51.879 imagine that you are inside a room, and for the 0:22:51.920 --> 0:22:55.720 purposes of this scenario, you do not understand Chinese. So 0:22:55.760 --> 0:22:59.600 if you do understand Chinese, pretend you don't. Okay. So 0:22:59.760 --> 0:23:02.479 there is a slot on the wall, and through this 0:23:02.520 --> 0:23:05.479 slot you occasionally get sheets of paper, and there are 0:23:05.560 --> 0:23:09.359 Chinese symbols on the sheets of paper. You cannot read these, 0:23:09.400 --> 0:23:11.280 you don't know what they stand for. You don't know 0:23:11.520 --> 0:23:15.000 anything about it other than they're clearly Chinese characters on 0:23:15.119 --> 0:23:19.520 the paper. However, what you do have inside this room 0:23:19.560 --> 0:23:22.639 with you is this big old book of instructions that 0:23:22.720 --> 0:23:25.359 tells you what to do when these papers come in, 0:23:25.720 --> 0:23:28.800 and you use the instructions to find the characters that 0:23:28.840 --> 0:23:32.480 are on the input sheet of paper, and you follow 0:23:32.640 --> 0:23:36.800 a path of instructions to create the corresponding response. Step 0:23:36.960 --> 0:23:39.320 by step, you do it all the way until you 0:23:39.359 --> 0:23:42.760 have created the full response to whatever was sent to you. 0:23:43.400 --> 0:23:46.920 Then you push the response back out the slot. Now 0:23:46.920 --> 0:23:48.480 the person on the other side of the slot is 0:23:48.480 --> 0:23:50.680 going to get a response that appears to come from 0:23:50.800 --> 0:23:54.760 someone who is fluent in Chinese, but you're not. You're 0:23:54.760 --> 0:23:57.760 just following a preset list of instructions. You don't have 0:23:57.800 --> 0:24:01.400 any actual understanding of what's going on. You still don't 0:24:01.440 --> 0:24:04.119 know the meaning of what was given to you. You 0:24:04.160 --> 0:24:07.480 don't even know the meaning of what you produced. You're 0:24:07.520 --> 0:24:12.960 just ignorantly following an algorithm. So externally it appears you understand. 0:24:13.040 --> 0:24:16.400 But if someone were to ask you to translate anything 0:24:16.440 --> 0:24:18.480 you have done, you wouldn't be able to do it. 0:24:19.240 --> 0:24:24.240 So Sarl is arguing against what is called strong AI. Generally, 0:24:24.560 --> 0:24:28.879 we define strong AI as artificial intelligence that processes information 0:24:28.920 --> 0:24:31.439 in a way that is similar to how our human 0:24:31.480 --> 0:24:36.400 brains process information. Strong AI may or may not include 0:24:36.520 --> 0:24:41.320 semi related concepts like sentience and self awareness and consciousness 0:24:41.359 --> 0:24:46.840 and motivations and the ability to experience things, etcetera. So 0:24:47.240 --> 0:24:51.760 Sarah is saying that machines, even incredibly sophisticated machines, are 0:24:51.840 --> 0:24:56.080 incapable of reaching a level of understanding that true intelligence 0:24:56.240 --> 0:24:59.920 can that we humans can grasp things on a level 0:25:00.200 --> 0:25:04.040 machines simply are unable to reach, even if the machines 0:25:04.080 --> 0:25:08.679 can process information faster and in greater quantities than humans 0:25:08.680 --> 0:25:11.840 are able to. Another way of putting this is a 0:25:11.920 --> 0:25:14.960 calculator can multiply two very large numbers and get a 0:25:14.960 --> 0:25:17.800 result much faster than a human could do, but the 0:25:17.840 --> 0:25:22.000 calculator doesn't understand any significance behind the numbers, or even 0:25:22.040 --> 0:25:26.320 if there's a lack of significance, the calculator doesn't have 0:25:26.520 --> 0:25:31.840 that capability. Now, maybe Searle's argument is valid, and maybe, 0:25:31.840 --> 0:25:36.439 as Touring suggests, it doesn't even matter. So let's talk 0:25:36.600 --> 0:25:42.199 about machine learning for a moment. Machine learning encompasses a 0:25:42.240 --> 0:25:46.400 broad scope of applications and approaches and disciplines, but I'll 0:25:46.440 --> 0:25:50.240 focus on one approach from a very high level. It's 0:25:50.280 --> 0:25:56.440 called generative adversarial networks or g A N s GANS. Okay, 0:25:56.480 --> 0:26:00.119 as the name suggests, this model uses two systems in 0:26:00.240 --> 0:26:04.439 opposition of one another. On one side, you have a 0:26:04.480 --> 0:26:10.399