The Dangers of Seeing Ourselves in Artificial Intelligence (with Anil Seth and Nils Gilman)

Dec 9, 2025

01:05:43

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Humans are built for pattern recognition. It is the engine behind perception, emotion, and the fragile sense of self that feels so solid from the inside. For Anil Seth, this pattern-making power explains why consciousness is not a light inside but a process the brain assembles from guesses about the world. And it matters that each of us perceives that world differently.

In this episode of Futurology, Seth talks with Nils Gilman about what these differences reveal about the nature of consciousness and why they matter for the debate over artificial minds. LLMs are pattern-recognition machines of a different kind, uncanny enough to gain our sympathy but Seth argues there is no there there. Caring for conscious AI could quickly become more than a harmless curiosity. It may turn into a zero-sum game that diminishes how we treat one another long before the machines ‘wake up’ in any meaningful way, if that is even possible at all.

Anil Seth

Anil Seth’s Website: https://www.anilseth.com/

Instagram: @profanilseth https://www.instagram.com/profanilseth/

BlueSky @anilseth.bsky.social https://bsky.app/profile/anilseth.bsky.social

Twitter: https://x.com/anilkseth

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding — John Locke (Book, 1689)

How to Change Your Mind About Psychedelics — Michael Pollan (Book, 2018)

Ex Machina — Alex Garland (Film, 2014)

The Perception Census — Anil Seth et al. (Online Study, Ongoing)

The Dress — Viral Internet Illusion (Internet Phenomenon, 2015)

Müller-Lyer Illusion — Franz Carl Müller-Lyer (Visual Illusion, 1889)

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