108 - Guest: Robert J. Sawyer, Science Fiction Writer, part 1

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ .

 

What if there are zombies among us? In another dive into the nature of consciousness, the "philosophical zombie" is a fascinating topic explored by a fascinating author, Robert J. Sawyer, the "Dean of Canadian Science Fiction," and one of only eight writers ever to win all three of the science-fiction field’s top honors for best novel of the year: the Hugo Award, which he won for his novel Hominids; the Nebula Award, which he won for his novel The Terminal Experiment, and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, which he won with his novel Mindscan.

We talk about zombies because of the question of how to know whether an AI is conscious, and yes, we discuss Blake Lemoine's assertion that Google's LaMDA AI has become sentient. Rob's stories explore how humans and superintelligent AI can both win. Find out more in part 1.

All this plus our usual look at today's AI headlines.

Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.