Making Sense with Sam Harris #239 — Yet Another Call from Ricky Gervais
Feb 24, 2021
Ricky Gervais, the witty comedian known for The Office and After Life, chats with Sam about the future of comedy in an AI-dominated world. They ponder on the nature of free will and whether a chimp might ever existentially question life. Ricky also humorously underscores the notion that bears are dangerous creatures. Delving into thought-provoking ideas, their banter weaves through consciousness, moral responsibility, and the peculiar comparisons of human and chimp intelligence, all while keeping the conversation lively and entertaining.
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Bathing Habits
- Ricky Gervais enjoys two baths daily in the winter or a bath and shower in the summer, sometimes out of boredom.
- This stems from his childhood, where his family could only afford one bath a week, sometimes using secondhand water.
Consciousness and AI
- Ricky Gervais questions if chimps, with their rudimentary tools and sense of self, experience spirituality or invent gods.
- He also wonders if computers, being reproducible brains, will develop emotions like paranoia or desires like murder.
The Hard Problem
- Sam Harris explains that consciousness arises from the brain's physical processes, though the "hard problem" of subjective experience remains.
- Brains aren't exactly like current computers, but the analogy is useful for understanding intelligence as problem-solving.