Roombas Are Not Conscious, So It's Not a Problem, Right?

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

If you show the same signs, behaviorally, on your face, emotions, and so on that I do, and I feel a certain way, it's a reasonable assumption, you probably feel something close to those same internal states. And we don't usually treat Roombas as if they're conscious most of the time. Our default settings for deciding what is and isn't conscious works great. It's effective. So why not just assume it? Because again, there's no evidence an animal doesn't have subjective experience.

All our unique gifts like language, math, and science do not make humans happier or more “successful” (evolutionarily speaking) than other species. Our intelligence allowed us to split the atom, but we’ve harnessed that knowledge to make machines of war. We are uniquely susceptible to bullshit; our bizarre obsession with lawns has contributed to the growing threat of climate change; we are sexually diverse like many species yet stand apart as homophobic; and discriminate among our own as if its natural, which it certainly is not. Is our intelligence more of a curse than a gift?

Shermer and Gregg discuss: • intelligence • stupidity • dolphins • artificial intelligence • language • rationality • moral systems • comparative thanatology • “causal inference” vs. “learned associations” • humans as “why specialists” • death awareness • why narwhals do not commit genocide • “prognostic myopia” • our “shortsighted farsightedness" as "an extinction-level threat to humanity” • consciousness and sophisticated consciousness: animals and humans • free will • determinism • pleasure vs. happiness vs. purposefulness.

Justin Gregg is a Senior Research Associate with the Dolphin Communication Project and an Adjunct Professor at St. Francis Xavier University where he lectures on animal behavior and cognition. Originally from Vermont, Justin studied the echolocation abilities of wild dolphins in Japan and The Bahamas. He currently lives in rural Nova Scotia where he writes about science and contemplates the inner lives of the crows that live near his home.