AI cannot have consciousness. Period.
I truly believe AI is the transformational tech of our generation. But it cannot have consciousness. Period.
Our consciousness derives, yes from our human neural networks, but also from the biome in our gut, from our DNA and that of our ancestors, from the touch of a baby's mother buried in the deep recall of the future adult, from the joy of the first snow of winter, to the dreaminess of the smell of the first summer honey. Science fiction novels may tell you otherwise, but no circuit will ever truly feel this.
Let me know here if you disagree, I'm truly interested.
This thought came about because 3 related articles on the philosophy of AI hit my inbox recently... From 3 completely unrelated sources. And raised profound questions about what it is to be human.
1. Anthropic is approaching philosophers and theologians and earnestly asking their views on whether AI could possibly exhibit consciousness. Carmody Grey wrote an FT article about how she turned down such an approach. She suggests Big AI is co-opting the academic community in order start letting the notion of "AI as a conscious being" seep into the public consciousness (pun intended). After all, it would be great marketing to make that true.
If that really is the goal, it is borderline psychopathic.
2. On the other side, Hunter Hudson says we humans are succumbing to the great AI knowledge machine His well articulated example is PhD students, the vast majority of whom don't shoot for "I want to be the next Dostoevsky or Kierkegaard". Instead they feed their unambitious research into an ever expanding receptacle of vittles to be devoured by AI. Our brightest humans have in his words, "turned themselves into a RAG pipeline". We're doing Big AI's job for it.
3. Finally Michael Sainato at the The Guardian wrote about how a humanoid robot teacher was introduced to a high school class at a NY school as an experiment in collaboration with a tech company. Cue lots of gnashing and wailing about how young minds could be corrupted. No. Teenagers are savvy enough to critically engage with such a bot to both get the learning they need but to know its limitations. They need direct exposure to the brave new world, so they can clear up in their heads what's real and what's not.
Putting the the threads together. Big AI is coming after our very soul. We may become a party to this this takeover if we are not careful. So let's ensure the young people who are our future get every opportunity to understand, embrace and push back. Our humanity may depend on it.
My contention is that teenagers being taught
