What Can AI Tell Us about the Human Mind? with Joscha Bach
Nov 18, 2018
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AI researcher Joscha Bach discusses the relationship between AI and the human mind, including topics such as motivation, emotion, and behavior. He also explores the transformation of civilizations, the embodiment idea in AI, and the concept of metasystematicity.
Using artificial intelligence to create models of the mind can provide insights into our own cognition, emotion, and perception.
The concept of meaning is an illusion created by our brains to navigate the world and motivate action.
The universe can be viewed as a mechanical system, and the understanding that reality is a creation of the brain remains a viable explanation.
Deep dives
Understanding the Mind through Artificial Intelligence
Dr. Yoshibok, an AI researcher at MIT and Harvard, discusses using artificial intelligence to better understand the human mind. He focuses on creating models of the mind using AI techniques to explore cognition, emotion, and perception. Rather than using the human mind as a model, Yoshibok aims to build machines that act like human minds, providing insights into our own mental processes.
The Universe as a Graph and Information Processing
Yoshibok explains that the universe can be described as a graph, with nodes representing locations and links representing relationships between them. He suggests that our understanding of the world is based on discernible differences, or information, which is processed by our brains to create meaning. Perception, reasoning, and experience are all part of this information processing framework, which helps us construct models of the world and our own sense of self.
The Illusion of Meaning and the Quest for Truth
Yoshibok delves into the idea that the concept of meaning is an illusion, created by our brains to navigate the world and motivate action. He argues that the pursuit of truth and understanding should go beyond traditional realms such as philosophy and embrace more rigorous scientific approaches, including AI research. The conversation touches on the limitations of rationality and the importance of insight practice in gaining new perspectives and unraveling the complex nature of the mind.
The Self as a Story in the Virtual Reality
The brain creates a self model as a tool for managing the world, integrating expected rewards over a lifetime. This self, or ego, serves as the highest function for individual survival and can be shared within group relationships. When serving larger systems, such as a state, a sense of God or a higher purpose arises. The mind, which can be influenced through rituals, is distinct from the self model. Non-duality is understood as realizing the self representation as a construct of the mind, while the external world is seen as a representation within the mind. Materialism and idealism are viewed as complementary rather than opposing, creating a two-tiered model of reality.
The Universe as a Generated Virtual Reality
The universe is viewed as a mechanical system generated by an automaton, which may not have any interest in humans. While debates exist about the exact nature of the universe and theories like quantum mechanics, the focus remains on the practical understanding that the universe operates like a machine. The meaning of life is seen as the process of harnessing energy and creating structure through controlled reactions, allowing organisms to outcompete other forms of life. Art is described as a significant conspiracy that captures and expresses conscious states, while distinguishing it from kitsch. Theories about reality, such as materialism and idealism, have diminishing returns, but the idea that reality is a creation of the brain remains a viable explanation.
Host Michael Taft speaks with Joscha Bach about artificial intelligence; the sense of self; building a civilizational intellect; what it is like to be a mind?; the relationships between motivation, emotion, and behavior; the “cargo cult” model of civilization; what is learning?; how artificial minds may be different from human minds, the enlightenment industry, the Tower of Babel myth; and much more.
Dr. Joscha Bach is an Artificial Intelligence researcher at MIT and Harvard who works and writes about cognitive architectures, mental representation, emotion, social modeling, and multi-agent systems. Bach’s mission to build a model of the mind is the bedrock research in the creation of Strong Artificial Intelligence, i.e. cognition on par with that of a human being.He is especially interested in the philosophy of Artificial Intelligence and in the augmentation of the human mind.
