The criteria for determining if a system is conscious are challenging to pinpoint, with historical debates suggesting that animals and even certain humans were considered as automata. The speaker leans towards a computationalist view, proposing that consciousness arises from a specific structure of computations that can be implemented by both organic brains and silicon computers. Despite the difficulty in defining consciousness, the speaker emphasizes the need to treat digital entities with kindness, suggesting there may be alternative bases for moral status. However, before policymakers can be approached on this matter, further theoretical groundwork is essential to understand the implications of being nice to the digital entities we create.
Nick Bostrom is a philosopher, professor at the University of Oxford and an author
For generations, the future of humanity was envisioned as a sleek, vibrant utopia filled with remarkable technological advancements where machines and humans would thrive together. As we stand on the supposed brink of that future, it appears quite different from our expectations. So what does humanity's future actually hold?
Expect to learn what it means to live in a perfectly solved world, whether we are more likely heading toward a utopia or a catastrophe, how humans will find a meaning in a world that no longer needs our contributions, what the future of religion could look like, a breakdown of all the different stages we will move through on route to a final utopia, the current state of AI safety & risk and much more...