As the race to human-level AI accelerates, researchers are increasingly confronted with the question of what it would mean to develop conscious AI. Will sentience emerge naturally from powerfully intelligent artificial systems? Or is consciousness incompatible with disembodied AI? As some human users become more attached to romantic chatbots, will the moral questions surrounding conscious AI become more pressing? In the final episode of our series on artificial general intelligence, the FT’s John Thornhill and Madhumita Murgia speak to Eugenia Kuyda, founder and chief executive of Replika, Anil Seth, professor of cognitive and computational neuroscience at the University of Sussex, and Henry Shevlin, director of the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence at the University of Cambridge.
Clips: TalkTV
Links:
Blake Lemoine transcript
Sci-fi writer Ted Chiang: ‘The machines we have now are not conscious’
Google places engineer on leave after he claims group’s chatbot is ‘sentient’
The golden age of AI-generated art is here. It’s going to get weird
EU agrees landmark rules on artificial intelligence
Tech Tonic is presented by Madhumita Murgia and John Thornhill. Senior producer is Edwin Lane and the producer is Josh Gabert-Doyon. Executive producer is Manuela Saragosa. Sound design by Breen Turner and Samantha Giovinco. Original music by Metaphor Music. The FT’s head of audio is Cheryl Brumley.
Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
John Maeda on designing the future
Sarah Chan on neural interfaces
Alice Bentinck on harnessing tech talent
Improving decision making through AI
Priya Lakhani on AI's power to transform education
Nicolas Berggruen on democracy in the digital age
Ben Goertzel on benevolent robots
Frances Arnold on directed evolution of enzymes
Digital printing for the fourth industrial revolution
Directing innovation towards sustainable growth
Paul Clarke on robotics and digital twins
Jennifer Doudna on gene editing
John Browne on engineering the future
Nathan Jurgenson on social media and the selfie
Eric Topol on making healthcare more human
New season starts on Monday
Andrew Ng on building an AI workforce
Rana Yared on investing in fintech
Marcus du Sautoy on creative AI
James Vlahos on voice technology
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
FT News Briefing
Money Clinic with Claer Barrett
FT World Weekly
FT News in Focus
FT Banking Weekly