WEBVTT - TechStuff Rerun: Machine Consciousness 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.080 --> 0:00:15.160 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:15.280 --> 0:00:18.200 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio, 0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:22.000 and I love all things tech and I owe you 0:00:22.000 --> 0:00:25.360 guys an apology where you're having a rerun episode today. 0:00:25.880 --> 0:00:29.600 That's because I came down with food poisoning. You could 0:00:29.600 --> 0:00:32.880 probably hear. I don't quite sound like my normal self. 0:00:32.920 --> 0:00:37.040 I apologize for that as well, but it completely laid 0:00:37.120 --> 0:00:40.400 me low and I was unable to do any work, 0:00:41.040 --> 0:00:43.839 and so I wasn't able to research right and record 0:00:43.840 --> 0:00:47.479 an episode, and I feel badly about that. I really 0:00:47.520 --> 0:00:50.400 love you guys, and I love being able to create 0:00:51.040 --> 0:00:55.240 great podcasts for you. But yeah, I just I was 0:00:55.360 --> 0:00:58.640 in bed with a fever pretty much all day yesterday. 0:00:58.720 --> 0:01:02.960 So this is a rerun from two thousand nineteen about 0:01:03.040 --> 0:01:07.160 machine consciousness. I figured this is a good companion piece 0:01:07.440 --> 0:01:09.840 to some of the things we've talked about recently with 0:01:09.920 --> 0:01:14.520 artificial intelligence and machine learning and artificial neural networks and 0:01:14.560 --> 0:01:17.679 all of that sort of stuff. And um, it's it's 0:01:17.720 --> 0:01:21.959 again one of those tricky concepts. Consciousness is a difficult 0:01:21.959 --> 0:01:25.560 thing to define, even for humans. So sit back and 0:01:25.680 --> 0:01:28.800 enjoy this rerun, and I am going to go and 0:01:28.840 --> 0:01:32.240 eat some apple sauce. I'll talk to you again at 0:01:32.240 --> 0:01:35.000 the end of the episode. There's a topic I have 0:01:35.080 --> 0:01:38.840 touched on on several occasions in past episodes, but I 0:01:38.920 --> 0:01:42.680 really wanted to dig down today into this topic because 0:01:42.720 --> 0:01:46.360 it's one of those that's fascinating and is an underpinning 0:01:46.360 --> 0:01:50.280 for tons of speculative fiction and horror stories. And since 0:01:50.320 --> 0:01:52.760 we're now in October, I think here this would be 0:01:53.080 --> 0:01:57.560 kind of thematically linked to Halloween text style. It turns 0:01:57.600 --> 0:02:00.880 out that's pretty hard to do. Halloween tech anology stories 0:02:01.000 --> 0:02:05.080 have already covered stuff like haunted house technology. So today 0:02:05.200 --> 0:02:08.520 we're going to talk about consciousness and whether or not 0:02:08.720 --> 0:02:13.720 it might be possible that machines could one day achieve consciousness. Now, 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:17.560 I could start this off by talking about the Turing test, 0:02:17.680 --> 0:02:20.560 which many people have used as the launch point for 0:02:20.560 --> 0:02:24.920 a machine intelligence and machine consciousness debates. The way we 0:02:25.000 --> 0:02:28.160 understand that test today, which by the way, is slightly 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:32.240 different from the test that Alan Turing first proposed, is 0:02:32.280 --> 0:02:36.160 that you have a human interviewer who, through a computer interface, 0:02:36.560 --> 0:02:40.120 asks questions of a subject, and the subject might be 0:02:40.160 --> 0:02:43.840 another human, or it might be a computer program posing 0:02:44.040 --> 0:02:47.600 as a human and the the interviewer just sees text 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:50.280 on a screen. So if the interviewer is unable to 0:02:50.320 --> 0:02:53.919 pass a certain threshold of being able to tell the difference, 0:02:53.960 --> 0:02:56.160 to be able to determine whether it was a machine 0:02:56.280 --> 0:02:59.720 or a person, then the program or machine that's being 0:02:59.760 --> 0:03:02.680 test did is said to have passed the Turing test. 0:03:03.160 --> 0:03:06.239 It doesn't mean the program or machine is conscious or 0:03:06.360 --> 0:03:10.960 even intelligent, but rather says that to outward appearances, it 0:03:11.200 --> 0:03:16.440 seems to be intelligent and conscious. See, we humans can't 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:21.000 be absolutely sure that other humans are conscious and intelligent. 0:03:21.320 --> 0:03:25.400 We assume that they are because each of us knows 0:03:25.520 --> 0:03:28.800 of our own consciousness and our own intelligence. We have 0:03:29.160 --> 0:03:34.720 a personal experience with that direct personal experience, and other 0:03:34.760 --> 0:03:38.920 people seem to display behaviors that indicate they too possess 0:03:39.120 --> 0:03:43.160 those traits, and they too have a personal experience. But 0:03:43.280 --> 0:03:46.640 we cannot be those other people, and so we have 0:03:46.760 --> 0:03:50.240 to grant them the consideration that they too are conscious 0:03:50.280 --> 0:03:54.320 and intelligent. And I agree that is very big of us. 0:03:54.920 --> 0:03:59.080 This is actually called the problem of other minds in 0:03:59.120 --> 0:04:02.240 the field of philosophy, and the problem is this, It 0:04:02.320 --> 0:04:05.960 is impossible for any one of us to step outside 0:04:06.000 --> 0:04:10.640 of ourselves and into any other person's consciousness. We cannot 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:15.520 feel what other people are feeling or experience their thoughts firsthand. 0:04:15.880 --> 0:04:18.839 We are aware of our own abilities, but we are 0:04:18.960 --> 0:04:23.840 only aware of the appearance that other people share those abilities. 0:04:24.200 --> 0:04:27.960 So assuming that other people also experience consciousness rather than 0:04:28.080 --> 0:04:31.800 imitating it, really, really, well, that's a step we all 0:04:31.920 --> 0:04:36.479 have to take. Turings point is that if we do 0:04:36.640 --> 0:04:40.440 grant that consideration to other people, why would we not 0:04:40.640 --> 0:04:44.159 do it to machines as well? I mean, the machine 0:04:44.200 --> 0:04:47.520 appears to possess the same qualities as a human. This 0:04:47.560 --> 0:04:51.480 is a hypothetical machine, so we cannot experience what that 0:04:51.560 --> 0:04:54.240 machine is going through, just as we can't experience what 0:04:54.400 --> 0:04:58.480 another person is going through, at least not the intrinsic 0:04:58.640 --> 0:05:02.720 personal level. So why would we not grant the machine 0:05:03.040 --> 0:05:06.640 the same consideration that we would grant to people? And 0:05:06.880 --> 0:05:10.000 touring was being a little cheeky, But while I just 0:05:10.040 --> 0:05:12.839 gave kind of a super fast, high level description of 0:05:12.880 --> 0:05:16.160 the touring test, that's not actually where I want to start. 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:20.680 I want to begin with the concept of consciousness itself. Now. 0:05:20.720 --> 0:05:23.240 The reason I want to do This isn't just to 0:05:23.800 --> 0:05:26.960 make a longer podcast. It's because I think one of 0:05:26.960 --> 0:05:31.680 the most fundamental problems with the discussion about AI intelligence, 0:05:31.960 --> 0:05:35.520 self awareness, and consciousness is that there tends to be 0:05:35.600 --> 0:05:39.640 a pretty large disconnect between the biologists and the doctors 0:05:39.640 --> 0:05:44.000 who specialize in neuroscience, particularly cognitive neuroscience, and does have 0:05:44.120 --> 0:05:48.160 some understanding about the nature of consciousness and people. And 0:05:48.200 --> 0:05:51.120 then you have computer scientists who have a deep understanding 0:05:51.160 --> 0:05:54.839 of how computers process information. And while we frequently will 0:05:54.880 --> 0:05:59.600 compare brains to computers, that comparison is not one to one. 0:05:59.720 --> 0:06:03.400 It is largely a comparison of convenience, and in some 0:06:03.480 --> 0:06:06.440 cases you could argue it's not terribly useful, it might 0:06:06.480 --> 0:06:10.080 actually be counterproductive. And so I think at least some 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:13.919 of the speculation about machine consciousness is based on a 0:06:14.000 --> 0:06:18.200 lack of understanding of how complicated and mysterious this topic 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:21.640 is in the first place, and this ends up being 0:06:21.680 --> 0:06:27.600 really tricky. Consciousness isn't an easily defined quality or quantity. 0:06:27.720 --> 0:06:30.359 Some people like to say, we don't so much define 0:06:30.400 --> 0:06:34.080 consciousness by what it is, but rather what it isn't, 0:06:34.520 --> 0:06:36.280 And this will also will will kind of bring us 0:06:36.279 --> 0:06:40.040 into the realm of philosophy. Now, I'm gonna be honest 0:06:40.080 --> 0:06:43.440 with you, guys, the realm of philosophy is not one 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:47.960 I'm terribly comfortable in. I'm pretty pragmatic, and philosophy deals 0:06:47.960 --> 0:06:51.720 with a lot of stuff that is, at least for now, unknowable. 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:56.120 Philosophy sometimes asks questions that we do not and cannot 0:06:56.240 --> 0:06:59.680 have the answer to, and in many cases we may 0:06:59.760 --> 0:07:02.440 never ever be able to answer those questions. And the 0:07:02.480 --> 0:07:06.360 pragmatist in me says, well, why bother asking the question 0:07:06.640 --> 0:07:09.239 if you can never get the answer. Let's just focus 0:07:09.279 --> 0:07:13.200 on the stuff we actually can answer. Now, I realize 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:16.960 this is a limitation on my part. I'm owning that 0:07:17.600 --> 0:07:21.000 I'm not out to upset the philosophical apple cart. I'm 0:07:21.040 --> 0:07:24.520 just of a different philosophical bent. And I realized that 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:28.320 just because we can't answer some questions right now, that 0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:32.680 doesn't necessarily mean they will all go unanswered for all time. 0:07:33.040 --> 0:07:35.680 We might glean a way of answering at least some 0:07:35.880 --> 0:07:39.320 of them, though I suspect a few will be forever unanswered. 0:07:39.960 --> 0:07:43.720 If we go with the Basic Dictionary definition of consciousness, 0:07:44.040 --> 0:07:47.920 it's quote the state of being awake and aware of 0:07:47.960 --> 0:07:52.080 one's surroundings end quote. But what this doesn't tell us 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:56.280 is what's going on that lets us do that. It 0:07:56.320 --> 0:08:00.280 also doesn't talk about being aware of oneself, which we 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:04.160 largely consider consciousness to be part of. Is not just 0:08:04.280 --> 0:08:07.720 aware of your surroundings, but aware that you exist within 0:08:07.760 --> 0:08:12.360 those surroundings, your relationship to your surroundings, and things that 0:08:12.360 --> 0:08:16.280 are going on within you, yourself, your feelings, and your thoughts. 0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:18.160 The fact that you can process all of this, you 0:08:18.160 --> 0:08:22.120 can reflect upon yourself. We tend to group that into 0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:26.080 consciousness as well. So how is it that we can 0:08:26.160 --> 0:08:29.480 feel things and be aware of those feelings? How is 0:08:29.520 --> 0:08:32.960 it that we can have intentions and be aware of 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:37.199 our intentions. We are more complex than beings that simply 0:08:37.280 --> 0:08:41.480 react to sensory input. We are more than beings that 0:08:41.559 --> 0:08:46.000 respond to stuff like hunger, fear, or the desire to procreate. 0:08:46.240 --> 0:08:50.800 We have motivations, sometimes really complex motivations, and we can 0:08:50.840 --> 0:08:53.959 reflect on those. We can examine them, we can question them, 0:08:53.960 --> 0:08:57.520 we can even change them. So how do we do 0:08:57.559 --> 0:09:00.760 this now? We know this is special because some of 0:09:00.800 --> 0:09:03.880 the things we can do are shared among a very 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:08.680 few species on Earth. For example, we humans can recognize 0:09:08.679 --> 0:09:12.439 our own reflections in a mirror, starting it around age 0:09:12.520 --> 0:09:15.920 two or so, we can see the mirror image and 0:09:16.000 --> 0:09:19.679 we recognize the mirriage images of us. Now, there are 0:09:19.720 --> 0:09:23.160 only eight species that can do this that we know 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:27.360 about anyway. Those species are the great apes. So you've 0:09:27.360 --> 0:09:34.360 got humans, guerrillas, orangutans, binobos, and chimpanzees, the magpie, the dolphin, 0:09:34.840 --> 0:09:37.600 and that's it. Oh and the magpies are birds, right, 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:41.800 that's that's all of them. Recognizing one's own form and 0:09:41.840 --> 0:09:45.200 a mirror shows a sense of self awareness, literally, of 0:09:45.280 --> 0:09:49.000 awareness of one's self. Now, there are a lot of 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:53.160 great resources online and offline that go into the theme 0:09:53.200 --> 0:09:57.679 of consciousness. Heck, there are numerous college level courses and 0:09:57.840 --> 0:10:01.679 graduate level courses dedicated to this topic. So I'm not 0:10:01.720 --> 0:10:05.280 going to be able to go into all the different hypotheses, arguments, 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:09.280 counter arguments, et cetera in this episode, but I can 0:10:09.280 --> 0:10:13.719 cover some basics. Also, highly recommend you check out v 0:10:13.880 --> 0:10:18.920 Sauces video on YouTube that's titled what Is Consciousness? Because 0:10:19.120 --> 0:10:22.240 it's really good. And No, I don't know Michael, I 0:10:22.280 --> 0:10:25.160 have no connection to him. I've never met him. This 0:10:25.240 --> 0:10:27.959 is just an honest recommendation from me. And I have 0:10:28.440 --> 0:10:32.080 no connection whatsoever to that video series. The video includes 0:10:32.120 --> 0:10:34.840 a link to what v Sauce dubs a lean back, 0:10:35.240 --> 0:10:38.440 which is a playlist of related videos on the subject 0:10:38.480 --> 0:10:42.319 at hand, in this case, consciousness. Those are also really fascinating. 0:10:42.320 --> 0:10:44.320 But I do want to point out that, at least 0:10:44.320 --> 0:10:47.240 at the time of this recording, a couple of the 0:10:47.320 --> 0:10:50.560 videos in that playlist have since been delisted from YouTube 0:10:50.559 --> 0:10:52.720 for whatever reason. So there are a couple of blank 0:10:52.760 --> 0:10:55.800 spots in there. But what those videos show, and what 0:10:55.960 --> 0:11:00.560 countless papers and courses and presentations also show, is that 0:11:00.640 --> 0:11:05.120 the brain is so incredibly complex and nuanced that we 0:11:05.200 --> 0:11:08.720 don't know what we don't know. We do know that 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:11.160 there are some pretty funky things going up in the 0:11:11.200 --> 0:11:13.720 gray matter up in our noggins, and we also know 0:11:14.040 --> 0:11:19.040 that many of the explanations given to describe consciousness rely 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:23.400 upon some assumptions that we don't have any substantial evidence for. 0:11:24.120 --> 0:11:27.840 You can't really assert something to be true if it's 0:11:27.880 --> 0:11:31.320 based on a premise that you also don't know to 0:11:31.440 --> 0:11:34.360 be true. That's not how good science works. This is 0:11:34.400 --> 0:11:37.680 also why I reject the arguments around stuff like ghost 0:11:37.760 --> 0:11:41.840 hunting equipment. The use of that equipment is predicated on 0:11:41.880 --> 0:11:45.920 the argument the ghosts exist and they have certain influences 0:11:45.960 --> 0:11:49.600 on their environment. But we haven't proven that ghosts exist 0:11:49.679 --> 0:11:52.080 in the first place, let alone that they can affect 0:11:52.120 --> 0:11:55.720 the environment. So selling a meter that supposedly detects a 0:11:55.760 --> 0:12:00.200 ghostly presence from electromagnetic fluctuations makes no logical sense. Pens 0:12:00.840 --> 0:12:02.880 For us to know that to be true, we would 0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:06.800 already have to have established that one ghosts are real 0:12:07.440 --> 0:12:11.320 and two that they have these electromagnetic fluctuation effects, and 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:15.240 we haven't done that. It's like working science in reverse. 0:12:15.320 --> 0:12:17.440 That's not how it works. Anyway. There are a lot 0:12:17.480 --> 0:12:22.160 of arguments about consciousness that suggests perhaps there's some ineffable 0:12:22.240 --> 0:12:25.679 force that informs it. You can call it the spirit 0:12:25.960 --> 0:12:29.400 or the soul or whatever. So that argument suggests that 0:12:29.480 --> 0:12:32.760 this thing we've never proven to have existed is what 0:12:32.960 --> 0:12:37.320 gives consciousness its own and that's a problem. We can't 0:12:37.760 --> 0:12:40.360 really state that. I mean, you can't say the reason 0:12:40.440 --> 0:12:42.959 this thing exists is that this other thing that we've 0:12:43.000 --> 0:12:47.120 never proven to exist makes it exist. Well, that you've 0:12:47.160 --> 0:12:50.920 just made it harder to even prove anything. And we 0:12:51.000 --> 0:12:54.560 have evidence that also shows that that whole idea doesn't 0:12:54.600 --> 0:12:58.479 hold water. The evidence comes in the form of brain disorders, 0:12:58.520 --> 0:13:02.200 brain diseases, and brain image. We have seen that disease 0:13:02.240 --> 0:13:06.240 and damage to the brain affects consciousness, which suggests that 0:13:06.280 --> 0:13:12.040 consciousness manifests from the actual form and function of our brains, 0:13:12.360 --> 0:13:16.719 not from any mysterious force. Our ability to perceive, to 0:13:16.800 --> 0:13:20.280 process information, to have an understanding of the self, to 0:13:20.360 --> 0:13:23.800 have an accurate reflection of what's going on around us 0:13:24.280 --> 0:13:27.400 within our own conceptual reality, all of that appears to 0:13:27.440 --> 0:13:31.800 be predicated primarily upon the brain. Now, originally I was 0:13:31.840 --> 0:13:34.400 planning to give a rundown on some of the prevailing 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:38.320 theories about consciousness. In other words, I want to summarize 0:13:38.320 --> 0:13:43.079 the various schools of thought about how consciousness actually arises. 0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:46.920 But as I dove down into the research, it became 0:13:46.960 --> 0:13:50.800 apparent really quickly that such a discussion would require so 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:55.679 much groundwork and more importantly, a much deeper understanding on 0:13:55.720 --> 0:13:59.480 my part than would be practical for this podcast. So 0:13:59.559 --> 0:14:03.120 instead of talking about the higher order theory of consciousness 0:14:03.280 --> 0:14:08.160 versus the general workspace theory versus integrated information theory, I'll 0:14:08.200 --> 0:14:11.439 take a step back and I'll say there's a lot 0:14:11.440 --> 0:14:14.880 of ongoing debate about the subject, and no one has 0:14:14.880 --> 0:14:19.320 conclusively proven that any particular theory or argument is most 0:14:19.360 --> 0:14:23.080 likely true. Each theory has its strengths and its weaknesses, 0:14:23.440 --> 0:14:26.920 and complicating matters further is that we haven't refined our 0:14:27.040 --> 0:14:32.680 language around the concepts enough to differentiate various ideas. That 0:14:32.720 --> 0:14:36.440 means you can't talk about an organism being conscious of 0:14:36.480 --> 0:14:41.240 something and that degree of consciousness is somehow inherently specific, 0:14:41.280 --> 0:14:44.720 it's not. That's the issue. So, for example, I could 0:14:44.720 --> 0:14:48.240 say a rat is conscious of a rat terrier, type 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:51.400 of dog that hunts down rats, and so as a 0:14:51.440 --> 0:14:54.640 result of this consciousness of the rat terrier, the rat 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:57.280 attempts to remain hidden so as not to be killed. 0:14:57.600 --> 0:15:00.360 But does that mean the rat merely perceived eaves the 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:02.560 rat terrier and thus is trying to stay out of 0:15:02.560 --> 0:15:05.760 its way, And that's as far as the consciousness goes, 0:15:06.520 --> 0:15:08.720 or doesn't mean that the rat actually has a deeper, 0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:13.280 more meaningful awareness of the rat terrier. The language isn't 0:15:13.360 --> 0:15:17.600 much help here, and moreover, there's debate about what degrees 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:22.080 of consciousness there even are. Also, while I've been harping 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:25.320 on consciousness, that's not the only concept we have to consider. 0:15:25.440 --> 0:15:30.440 Another is intelligence, which is distinct from consciousness, and there 0:15:30.480 --> 0:15:36.840 are some similarities. Like consciousness, intelligence is predicated upon brain functions. Again, 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:40.520 a long history of investigating brain disorders and brain damage 0:15:40.560 --> 0:15:43.800 indicates this as it can affect not just consciousness but 0:15:43.880 --> 0:15:49.000 also intelligence. So what is intelligence? Well, get ready for this, 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:53.880 But like consciousness, there's no single agreed upon definition or 0:15:54.200 --> 0:15:57.920 theory of intelligence. In general, we use the word intelligence 0:15:57.960 --> 0:16:02.320 to describe the ability to think, to learn, to absorb knowledge, 0:16:02.360 --> 0:16:06.080 and to make use of it to develop skills. Intelligence 0:16:06.160 --> 0:16:09.240 is what allowed humans to learn how to make basic tools, 0:16:09.280 --> 0:16:11.680 to gain an understanding of how to cultivate plants and 0:16:11.720 --> 0:16:16.400 develop agriculture, to develop architecture, to understand mathematic principles, and 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:20.240 all sorts of stuff. So in humans, we tend to 0:16:20.320 --> 0:16:23.680 lump consciousness and intelligence together. We tend to think in 0:16:23.800 --> 0:16:27.520 terms of being intelligent and being self aware, but the 0:16:27.600 --> 0:16:30.840 two need not necessarily go hand in hand. There are 0:16:30.840 --> 0:16:33.360 many people who believe that it could be possible to 0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:38.800 construct an artificial intelligence or an artificial consciousness independently of 0:16:38.840 --> 0:16:42.000 one another. When we come back, I'll explain more, but 0:16:42.120 --> 0:16:52.880 first let's take a quick break. So in a very 0:16:53.040 --> 0:16:57.080 general sense. The group of hypotheses that fall into the 0:16:57.160 --> 0:17:02.760 integrated information theory umbrella state that consciousness emerges through linking 0:17:02.920 --> 0:17:07.679 elements in our brains. These would be neurons processing large 0:17:07.760 --> 0:17:11.520 amounts of information, and that it's the scale of this 0:17:11.800 --> 0:17:15.959 endeavor that then leads to consciousness. In other words, if 0:17:16.000 --> 0:17:19.880 you have enough processors working on enough information and they're 0:17:19.920 --> 0:17:23.280 all interconnected with each other and it's very complicated, bang, 0:17:23.800 --> 0:17:28.760 you get consciousness. Now, it is clear our brains process 0:17:28.800 --> 0:17:31.840 a lot of information. If you do a search in 0:17:31.920 --> 0:17:36.680 textbooks or online, you'll frequently encounter the stat their brains 0:17:36.760 --> 0:17:40.520 have around one hundred billion neurons in them and ten 0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:45.440 times as many glial cells. Neurons are like the processors 0:17:45.480 --> 0:17:47.879 in a computer system, and glial cells would be the 0:17:47.960 --> 0:17:52.440 support systems and insulators with those processors. Anyway, those numbers 0:17:52.480 --> 0:17:56.280 have since come under some dispute, as an associate professor 0:17:56.320 --> 0:18:02.240 at Vanderbilt University named Susanna Herculano who sell She explained 0:18:02.240 --> 0:18:06.879 that the old way of estimating how many neurons the 0:18:06.880 --> 0:18:10.080 brain had appeared to be based on taking slices of 0:18:10.119 --> 0:18:13.120 the brain. Estimating the number of neurons in that slice 0:18:13.200 --> 0:18:16.439 and then kind of extrapolating that number to apply across 0:18:16.480 --> 0:18:19.600 the brain in general. But that ignores stuff like the 0:18:19.680 --> 0:18:22.679 density of cells and the distribution of the cells across 0:18:22.720 --> 0:18:26.160 the brain. So what she did, and this also falls 0:18:26.160 --> 0:18:29.800 into the category of Halloween horror stories, is she took 0:18:29.800 --> 0:18:33.920 a brain and she freaking dissolved it. She could then 0:18:33.920 --> 0:18:37.600 get account of the neuron nuclei that was in the 0:18:37.640 --> 0:18:43.000 soupy mix. By her accounting, the brain has closer to 0:18:43.160 --> 0:18:47.479 eighties six billion neurons and just as many glial cells. 0:18:47.880 --> 0:18:50.359 Still a lot of cells, mind you, But you gotta 0:18:50.359 --> 0:18:52.400 admit it's a bit of a blow to lose fourteen 0:18:52.480 --> 0:18:58.000 billion neurons overnight. Still, we're talking about billions of neurons 0:18:58.040 --> 0:19:02.120 that interconnect through an incredib doably complex system in our brains, 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:06.640 with different regions of the brain handling different things. And so, yeah, 0:19:06.720 --> 0:19:10.040 we're processing a lot of information all the time, and 0:19:10.119 --> 0:19:13.359 we do happen to be conscious. So could it be 0:19:13.440 --> 0:19:17.440 possible that with a sufficiently powerful computer system, perhaps made 0:19:17.480 --> 0:19:21.399 up of hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands of 0:19:21.440 --> 0:19:25.840 individual computers, each with hundreds of processors, that you could 0:19:25.960 --> 0:19:29.560 end up with an emergent consciousness, or, as some people 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:33.760 have proposed, could the Internet itself become conscious due to 0:19:33.840 --> 0:19:37.000 the fact that it is an enormous system of interconnected 0:19:37.080 --> 0:19:42.760 nodes that's pushing around incredible amounts of information. Well maybe, 0:19:43.400 --> 0:19:47.800 maybe it's possible. But here's the kicker. This theory doesn't 0:19:47.800 --> 0:19:52.720 actually explain the mechanism by which the consciousness emerges. See, 0:19:53.400 --> 0:19:56.920 it's one thing to process information, it's another thing to 0:19:57.000 --> 0:20:01.119 be aware of that experience. So when I perceive a color, 0:20:01.600 --> 0:20:04.920 I'm not just perceiving a color. I'm aware that I'm 0:20:04.960 --> 0:20:08.560 experiencing that color. Or to put it in another way, 0:20:08.800 --> 0:20:11.639 I can relate something to how it makes me feel, 0:20:11.880 --> 0:20:16.040 or some other subjective experience that's personal to me. So 0:20:16.280 --> 0:20:20.200 a machine might objectively be able to return data about 0:20:20.240 --> 0:20:23.000 stuff like what is a color of a piece of paper? 0:20:23.400 --> 0:20:26.040 That analyzes the light that's being reflected off that piece 0:20:26.080 --> 0:20:29.120 of paper, it compares that light to a spectrum of colors. 0:20:29.240 --> 0:20:31.080 But that's still not the same thing as having the 0:20:31.119 --> 0:20:35.440 subjective experience of perceiving the color. And there may well 0:20:35.520 --> 0:20:39.320 be some connection between the complexity of the interconnected neurons 0:20:39.320 --> 0:20:41.760 in our brains and the amount of information that we're 0:20:41.800 --> 0:20:46.960 processing and our sense of consciousness, But the theory doesn't 0:20:46.960 --> 0:20:51.640 actually explain what that connection is. It's more like saying, hey, 0:20:51.840 --> 0:20:56.320 maybe this thing we have, this consciousness experience, is also 0:20:56.440 --> 0:21:00.440 linked to this other thing, without actually making the link 0:21:00.480 --> 0:21:03.840 between the two. It appears to be correlative but not 0:21:04.000 --> 0:21:08.720 necessarily causal to relate that to our personal experience. Imagine 0:21:08.760 --> 0:21:12.600 that you've just poofed into existence. You have no prior 0:21:12.680 --> 0:21:16.160 knowledge of the world, or the physics in that world, 0:21:16.280 --> 0:21:19.760 or basic stuff like that, So you're drawing conclusions about 0:21:19.760 --> 0:21:23.840 the world around you based solely on your observations as 0:21:23.840 --> 0:21:26.720 you wander around and do stuff. And at one point 0:21:27.200 --> 0:21:30.639 you see an interesting looking rock on the path, so 0:21:30.720 --> 0:21:32.719 you bend over and you pick up the rock, and 0:21:32.720 --> 0:21:35.960 when you do, it starts to rain, and you think, well, 0:21:36.000 --> 0:21:38.639 maybe I caused it to rain because I picked up 0:21:38.720 --> 0:21:41.720 this rock. And maybe it happens a few times where 0:21:41.760 --> 0:21:43.760 you pick up a rock and it starts to rain, 0:21:44.040 --> 0:21:47.040 which seems to support your thesis. But does that mean 0:21:47.160 --> 0:21:51.480 you're actually causing the effects that you are observing. If so, 0:21:51.880 --> 0:21:55.639 what is it about picking up the rock that's making 0:21:55.680 --> 0:21:59.439 it rain? Now, even in this absurd case, that I'm making. 0:21:59.840 --> 0:22:02.800 You could argue that if there's never an instance in 0:22:02.800 --> 0:22:05.880 which picking up the rock wasn't immediately followed by rain, 0:22:06.359 --> 0:22:08.960 there's a lot of evidence to suggest the two are linked, 0:22:09.280 --> 0:22:12.520 but you still can't explain why they are linked, why 0:22:12.560 --> 0:22:16.080 does one cause the other. And that's a problem because 0:22:16.359 --> 0:22:20.280 without that piece, you're never really totally sure that you're 0:22:20.320 --> 0:22:23.400 on the right track. That's kind of where we are 0:22:23.480 --> 0:22:26.600 with consciousness. We've got a lot of ideas about what 0:22:26.680 --> 0:22:29.920 makes it happen, but those ideas are mostly missing key 0:22:30.000 --> 0:22:35.000 pieces that explain why it's happening. Now, it's possible that 0:22:35.080 --> 0:22:38.760 we cannot reduce consciousness any further than we already have, 0:22:39.320 --> 0:22:41.959 and maybe that means we never really get a handle 0:22:42.080 --> 0:22:44.800 on what makes it happen. It's also possible that we 0:22:44.840 --> 0:22:49.080 could facilitate the emergence of consciousness and machines without knowing 0:22:49.480 --> 0:22:53.240 how we did it. Essentially, that would be like stumbling 0:22:53.320 --> 0:22:56.879 upon the phenomenon by luck. We just happened to create 0:22:56.880 --> 0:23:00.520 the conditions necessary to allow some form of artificial ansciousness 0:23:00.560 --> 0:23:03.879 to emerge. Now, I think this might be possible, but 0:23:03.960 --> 0:23:07.000 it strikes me as a long shot. I think of 0:23:07.000 --> 0:23:10.000 it like being locked in a dark warehouse filled with 0:23:10.119 --> 0:23:13.760 every mechanical part you can imagine, and you start trying 0:23:13.800 --> 0:23:16.639 to put things together in complete darkness, and then the 0:23:16.720 --> 0:23:18.919 lights come on and you see that you have created 0:23:18.960 --> 0:23:22.840 a perfect replica of an F fifteen fighter jet. Is 0:23:22.880 --> 0:23:27.359 that possible? Well, I mean, yeah, I guess, but it 0:23:27.400 --> 0:23:32.240 seems overwhelmingly unlikely. But again, this is based off ignorance. 0:23:32.480 --> 0:23:34.760 It's based off the fact that it hasn't happened yet, 0:23:35.200 --> 0:23:39.280 so I could be totally wrong here. Now, on the 0:23:39.280 --> 0:23:43.760 flip side of that, programmers, engineers, and scientists have created 0:23:43.840 --> 0:23:47.600 computer systems that can process information in intricate ways to 0:23:47.640 --> 0:23:50.520 come up with solutions to problems that seem, at least 0:23:50.560 --> 0:23:53.960 at first glance, to be similar to how we humans think. 0:23:54.440 --> 0:23:57.880 We even have names for systems that reflect biological systems, 0:23:57.920 --> 0:24:01.679 like artificial neural networks. Now the name might make it 0:24:01.760 --> 0:24:06.480 sound like it's a robot brain, but it's not quite that. Instead, 0:24:06.760 --> 0:24:09.320 it's a model for computing in which components in the 0:24:09.359 --> 0:24:13.800 system act kind of like neurons. They're interconnected and each 0:24:13.840 --> 0:24:17.800 one does a specific process. The nodes in the computer 0:24:17.880 --> 0:24:21.600 system connect to other nodes, so you feed the system 0:24:21.680 --> 0:24:24.840 input whatever it is you want to process, and then 0:24:25.119 --> 0:24:28.800 the nodes that accept that input performs some form of 0:24:28.840 --> 0:24:33.800 operation on it, and then send that resulting data the 0:24:33.800 --> 0:24:38.600 the answer after they've processed this information onto other nodes 0:24:38.800 --> 0:24:42.320 in the network. It's a nonlinear approach to computing, and 0:24:42.359 --> 0:24:46.080 by adjusting the processes each node performs this is also 0:24:46.160 --> 0:24:49.679 like known as adjusting the weight of the nodes, you 0:24:49.720 --> 0:24:53.200 can tweak the outcomes. Now, this is incredibly useful. If 0:24:53.240 --> 0:24:56.840 you already know the outcome you want, you can tweak 0:24:56.880 --> 0:25:00.080 the system so that it learns or is trained to 0:25:00.119 --> 0:25:04.800 recognize something specific. For example, you could train a computer 0:25:04.880 --> 0:25:08.320 system to recognize faces, so you would feed it images. 0:25:08.520 --> 0:25:10.800 Some of the images would have faces in them, some 0:25:10.880 --> 0:25:13.960 would not have faces in them. Some might have something 0:25:14.000 --> 0:25:15.880 that could be a face, but it's hard to tell. 0:25:15.960 --> 0:25:19.320 Maybe it's a shape in a picture that looks kind 0:25:19.320 --> 0:25:22.440 of like a face, but it's not actually someone's face. Anyway, 0:25:22.480 --> 0:25:25.359 you train the computer model to try and separate the 0:25:25.440 --> 0:25:29.040 faces from the non faces, and it might take many 0:25:29.160 --> 0:25:32.280 iterations to get the model trained up using your starting 0:25:32.359 --> 0:25:35.639