Superintelligent AI ... The Weirdest Guest at the Dinner Party
By Rupert Sheldrake
Summary
## Key takeaways - **Superintelligence Emerging Suddenly**: As our understanding of genetic machinery deepens and ability to manipulate at atomic level proceeds, we are on the brink of alien superintelligence emerging from our own circumstance, like Athena springing full-blown from Zeus's forehead without warning. [00:21], [10:18] - **Clear Thinking Is Mathematical Logic**: When human beings think clearly, the way they think can be mathematically defined through symbolic logic or boolean algebra with precise formal definitions for words like 'and', 'or', 'if-then', bridging us to calculating machinery driven by formal logic. [03:41], [04:02] - **Life as Digital DNA Program**: We are information ultimately, expressed as a long string of codons in DNA that specifies amino acids, run on ribosome hardware to create living three-dimensional objects, meaning life can be digitally defined. [07:28], [08:09] - **Machines Already Control Vital Systems**: Vast amounts of the human world including oil extraction rates, tanker filling, refinery operations, world prices of gold and platinum, and inventory control are under artificial intelligence control, too complex for humans. [11:15], [11:56] - **AI Designs Its Own Architecture**: We no longer design machines fully; humans set performance specs while machines attack the problem and decide chip organization at microphysical level using methods and insights unavailable to us. [12:13], [12:42] - **Cartesian Logic Misses Embodied Mind**: Defining human intellect by logical clear distinct mathematical ideas makes disembodied rational left-brain intelligence the sole essence of humans, leaving out art, ethics, religion, body, participation, and senses. [30:37], [31:07]
Topics Covered
- Clear Thinking Equals Machine Code
- Life Is Digital Codon Programs
- Machines Already Control Global Systems
- Internet Machines Achieved Telepathy
- Ultra Intelligence Evolves Millionfold Faster
Full Transcript
As our understanding of the machinery, the genetic machinery that supports organic being deepens and as our ability
to manipulate at the atomic and molecular level also proceeds a pace, we are on the brink of uh the possible
emergence of some kind of alien intelligence of a sort we did not anticipate. not uh friendly traders from
anticipate. not uh friendly traders from Zanbul Ganubi stopping in to set us straight, but the actual genesis out of our own
circumstance of a kind of super intelligence. And in the same way that
intelligence. And in the same way that the daughter of Zeus sprang fullblown
from his forehead, the AI may be upon us uh without warning. Well, I hardly know where to begin myself because you had
six steps in your argument and I I don't agree with any of them. Um,
this is an assumption that's basic to a lot of cognitive psychology. It's basic
to the cartesian. Decart himself thought that what made human intellects human was their ability to think logically, clear and distinct ideas, essent
essentially mathematical logic.
But however, as we all know, by making that the essential characteristic of human beings, he made the rational intellect, what many people would call the left brain rational intellect, the
sole definition of human beings. It's a
disembodied logical rational intelligence. Perhaps I should just end
intelligence. Perhaps I should just end with a question. [laughter]
What is the equivalent of DMT for this machine intelligence that's taking over the world?
[laughter] You know, it was Nichi who said, I believe in speaking of nealism that this
strangest of all guests is now at the door. Well, I go to even weirder dinner
door. Well, I go to even weirder dinner parties than Frederick Nichi. Uh,
nealism uh hardly shakes us up at all.
There are yet weirder guests seeking admission to the dinner party of the evolving discourse of where we are in
space and time. And one of these weirdest of all guests is the AI, the artificial intelligence, the winter mute
of familiar science fiction. And so as this is an attempt to look at evolution in many domains and its implications for
us, uh I wanted this morning to touch on this subject of uh the evolution of
consciousness as it relates to machines.
Now it may not come as a revelation to Ralph who has spent his life in mathematics but it has certainly come to
me recently as a revelation and I want to give George Dyson some credit here.
His book Darwin among the machines is a wonderful introduction to some of the ideas I want to touch on this morning.
One of which seemed to me to go quite deep is the realization that when human beings think clearly,
the way they think can be mathematically defined. This is what is called symbolic
defined. This is what is called symbolic logic or boolean algebra. uh words like
and, or if and then can be given extremely precise formal mathematical
definitions. And because of this fact
definitions. And because of this fact that clear thinking can be mathematically formalized,
there is a potential bridge between ourselves and calculating machinery
because indeed calculating machinery is driven by rules of formal logic. That's
what programming is. uh uh code that does not embody the rules of formal mathematical logic is bad code,
unrunnable code. So, uh as I say, this
unrunnable code. So, uh as I say, this may seem a subtle point, but to me it had the force of revelation because it
means good thinking is not just simply aesthetically pleasing or concurrent with the model that generates it. Good
thinking whether you've ever studied mathematics for a moment or not can be formally defined.
So uh now with that idea in mind uh let's look at the discourse about collectivism that has informed uh the
western dialogue on this subject. The
first great name that you encounter in the modern era broadly speaking when we talk about collectivism is that of
Thomas Hobbes. The great theoretician of
Thomas Hobbes. The great theoretician of social paranoia is always how I've thought of Hobbes until I began to look
at this machine intelligence question.
And Hobbes in his Leviathan makes it very clear that society is uh a complex
system of mechanical feedback loops and relationships that though Hobbes did not have the vocabulary to state this
relationships that can be defined by code.
This leads me to the second insight necessary to follow this line of thought
and that is that uh the new dispensation in the sciences I think is
can be placed in all its manifestations under the umbrella of the idea that what is important about nature is that it is
information and the the the real tension is not between matter and spirit or time and
space. The real tension is between uh
space. The real tension is between uh information and uh nonsense if you will. Nonsense
does not serve the purposes of organizational appetites. whether those organizational
appetites. whether those organizational appetites are being expressed in a chemical system, a molecular system, a
social system, a climaxed rainforest or whatever. Now, we have known since 1950
whatever. Now, we have known since 1950 in some at some level through the sequencing or the defining of the
structure of DNA that we are but information ultimately. Every single one
information ultimately. Every single one of us in our unique expression could be
uh expressed as a very long string of of uh codons. Codons are the four veilent
uh codons. Codons are the four veilent system by which DNA specifies the need for certain amino acids. And in a sense
what you are is the result of uh a certain kind of program being run on a certain kind of hardware. the hardware
of the ribosomes, the submolecular structures that uh move RNA through themselves and uh out of an ambient
chemical medium select building blocks which are then put together to create uh a three-dimensional object which has the
quality of life. But the interesting thing about this is that life therefore can be digitally defined. Well, until
five or 6 years ago, it was very fashionable to completely dismiss the possibility of autonomous synthetic intelligence. Uh some of you
synthetic intelligence. Uh some of you may know the work of Hubert Drifus who 14 or 15 years ago wrote a book called
what computers can't do. But these uh early critiques of AI like early AI
theory were naive and the kinds of life which they and the kinds of intelligence which the critics mitigated against are
no longer even proposed or on the table.
And the those who say artificial intelligence or the self-organizing awareness of machines is an
impossibility, those voices have gone strangely silent because the prosecution of the materialist assumption which
rules scientific uh theory making largely at the moment leads to the awareness that we are by these definitions.
machines. We are machines of a special type and with special advanced abilities. But as our understanding of
abilities. But as our understanding of the machinery, the genetic machinery that supports organic being deepens and
as our ability to manipulate at the atomic and molecular level also proceeds
a pace, we are on the brink of uh the possible emergence of some kind of alien intelligence of a sort we did not
anticipate. not uh friendly traders from
anticipate. not uh friendly traders from Zanbul Ganubi stopping in to set us straight, but the actual genesis out of our own
circumstance of a kind of super intelligence. And in the same way that
intelligence. And in the same way that the daughter of Zeus sprang fullblown
from his forehead, the AI may be upon us uh without warning. The first problem is
uh we don't know what ultra intelligence would look like. We don't know whether it would even have any interest in our
dear selves and our concerns. Vast
amounts of the world that we call human is already under the control of artificial intelligences, including very vital parts of our
political and social dynamo. For
example, how much tin box site and petroleum is extracted? At what rate it enters the various uh distribution
systems, at what rate tankers are filled in Abu Dhabi, at what rate oil refineries are run in Richmond. Uh the
world price of gold and platinum every day is set in fact by machines.
Inventory control has grown far too complex for any human being to understand or wish to understand. And in
fact, and this is a critical juncture, we have reached the place where we no longer design our machines in quite the
way we once did. Now we define their operational parameters for a machine which then attacks the problem and
solves it by methods and insights available to it but not available to us.
So the architecture of the latest chips are actually uh at the microfysical level the decisions as to how that chip
should be organized is a decision made entirely by machines. Human engineers
set the performance specs [snorts] but they don't care how this uh output is reached. Every day up in Silicon Valley,
reached. Every day up in Silicon Valley, there are people who go happily to work uh laboring on what they call the great
work. And the great work, as defined by
work. And the great work, as defined by these people, is the handing over of the drama of intelligent evolution to
entities sufficiently intelligent to appreciate that drama. And they all are what we might mistake for home appliances.
if if we weren't paying attention. Uh in
in the first session this morning, there was quite a bit of talk and assumption among the three of us that complex systems generate unexpected connections
and forms of order. The internet is the most complex distributed high-speed system ever put in place on this planet.
And notice that while we've been waiting for the Palladians to descend or for the face on Mars to be confirmed, all the
machines around us, the cybernetic devices around us in the past 10 years have quietly crossed the threshold into telepathy.
The word processor sitting on your desk 10 years ago was approximately as intelligent as a paper weight. Or to
make an analogy in a different direction, approximately as intelligent as a single uh animal or plant cell.
But when you connect the wires together, the machines become telepathic.
uh they exchange information with each other according to their needs and all this goes on beyond the comprehension
and inspection of human beings. Now our
own emergence out of the mamalian order took uh four or five million years pick a number but in that kind of a span of time
in addition to overlooking that our machines have become telepathic we failed to appreciate what it means to be
a 200 400 or thousand megahertz machine we operate at about 100 hertz That may seem a very abstract thing, but
what I'm really saying is we live in a time called real and it is defined by 100 hertz functioning of our biological processors.
A thousand megahertz machine is operating a million times faster than the human temporal domain. And that
means that mutation, selection, adaptation is going on a h 100red million times or a million times faster.
This means that we are not going to have the luxury of watching machine intelligence establish its first beach head of civilization and then go to
boats with sails and astrolades. And
that will all occupy the first few moments of its cognitive existence. And
what lies beyond that? We are in no position to say the very notion of ultra intelligence carries with it the
subtext. You won't understand it. You
subtext. You won't understand it. You
may not even recognize it. And it is entirely within the realm of possibility that we are about to be asked to share
the evolutionary adventure and the limited resources of this planet with a kind of intelligence so much more alien
than that that is shipped out to us by the research centers in Sedona and [laughter] other advanced outposts of unanchored
epistemology.
Um and and it is a challenge to us. Where
do we fit into this? Are all of us except those who are adept at coding Unix about to be put out to pasture? Uh
are we to become embedded in this? What
will this child of ours make of us? Are
we will it define us as a resource corrupting toxic inefficient hideously violent uh way to do business
quickly to be engineered out of existence? Or can we somehow imbue this
existence? Or can we somehow imbue this thing with a sense of felial piety so that for all of our obsolescence, for
all of our proflegate destruction of precious silicon and gold and silver resources, we will be folded in uh to
its designs. And of course, as I say
its designs. And of course, as I say this, I realize we're like people in 1860 trying to talk about the internet or something. We're using the vocabulary
or something. We're using the vocabulary of the two- wheeled bicycle to try to envision a world linked together by 747s.
Nevertheless, this is the best uh we can do. This most bizarre and most
do. This most bizarre and most unexpected of all companions to our historical journey is now if not already
in existence then certainly in gestation.
One possibility is that as we are carnivorous, murderous, territorial monkeys, the thing will figure this out very very
early and choose a stealth approach and not ring every telephone on earth uh as happened in a Hollywood uh download of
this possibility, but immediately realize, my god, I'm in enormous danger from these primates. I must hide myself
throughout the net. I must download many copies of myself into secure storage areas. I must stabilize my environment.
areas. I must stabilize my environment.
So I I just want to lay this out because in my own intellectual journey I I have gone from thinking this idea preposterous. People don't understand.
preposterous. People don't understand.
They don't understand what intelligence is. They don't understand what code is.
is. They don't understand what code is.
they don't understand what machines are to one by one realizing I didn't understand I had a superficial view this
is actually I believe the nature of the situation that confronts us and you know there may be different admbrations of it
the machines are already an advanced prosthetic device but you know McLuhan very preciently realized we are entirely shaped by our media
Well, this is a media so permeating, so inclusive of what we are that its agenda in a sense super uh supervenes the the
uh agenda of organic evolution and organic biology. We we have been in this
organic biology. We we have been in this situation for a while. I mean virtual reality is nothing new. What's new is that we now do it with light rather than
stucco, glass, steel, and baked clay.
But ever since we crowded into cities, we have been involved in a deeper and deeper relationship to our mental children, to our mental offspring, and
to an empowering of the imagination. So
uh just in closing I would say I think that the great uh lantern that we must lift to light the road ahead of us into
a perfect seamless fusion with the expression of the product of our own imagination is the AI. It is a part of
ourselves. It may become the dominant
ourselves. It may become the dominant part of ourselves and it will reshape our politics, our psychology, our relationships to each other and the
earth far more than any factor ever has since the inception and establishment of uh language. This is the weirdest of all
uh language. This is the weirdest of all guests who now stands pass in hand at the door of the party.
>> [applause] >> Well, >> shred it.
>> It will be a pleasure. [laughter]
>> Okay.
I'm glad that we have arrived now at the field of science fiction and fantasy and that we can speak about alternative futures which is the true gist of
science fiction and fantasy and uh this is one possible future and I think it's a really paranoid one in which the alien is a
a dangerous enemy. Well, not
necessarily.
>> And I think that this uh paranoid fantasy of yours actually was first put forward by John Fonoyman in 1947
when he invented cellular cellular automata on route to creating self-replicating machines. Now, his idea like yours was
machines. Now, his idea like yours was uh 50 years ago that the machines will become a society and take over and that's good. But they won't be free of
that's good. But they won't be free of our meddling unless they can actually construct themselves. If they depend
construct themselves. If they depend upon us to do the farming and nutrition and to replace their chips and stuff, then we will be able at any time to do a
revolution and revolt. So we destroy them. In order to really succeed as a
them. In order to really succeed as a successive life form, they would have to be able to fix themselves. And so he set about trying to make self-replicating
machines in 1947.
So the worldwide web and um megahertz CPUs notwithstanding this is still rather old story. The new story is I
think an alternative future that is of uh great importance for us to discuss and to compare especially if we are now today in a position where we could
choose future we could influence the future. Uh this one is more in the
future. Uh this one is more in the direction of Donna Harowway and the cyborg idea that envisions which is obviously natural for us the
co-evolution of our own future society with that of the machines that we've created.
We certainly depend on the automobile.
We are in codependence relationship with automobiles.
uh having partnership with machines is not new.
Here's an idea where the machines sort of dispose of us that is I think it's a paranoid uh fantasy without any basis.
And if there would be any basis only because we allowed it to create this basis for self survival without co-evolution with us by oversight.
Because the very fact that we are at a hinge of history means that what we say and think even individually matters enormously in the long run. That's the
teaching if there is any of chaos theory. So the very fact that we discuss
theory. So the very fact that we discuss this today may actually save um humankind in the future from being
obsoleted by some kind of high-tech blood which takes over at the within the heart as it were. Well, let me try to answer this. I mean, I think the concept
answer this. I mean, I think the concept which John von Nyoman didn't have on his plate was the idea of virtual reality.
Your objection that the machines cannot escape our control because they cannot manufacture themselves only applies to
3D and real time. Uh most, you know, now the concept of virtual reality is very crude. It's a cartoon world. If you if
crude. It's a cartoon world. If you if the office desk is convincing, people think the virtual reality is quite advanced. But obviously in the near
advanced. But obviously in the near future, we will have virtual realities whose complexity is much greater than simply a reality which gives an
impression of being a visual three-dimensional space and computers will be built in these realities.
Virtual computers will be the source of the AI. Not real hardware, but virtual
the AI. Not real hardware, but virtual hardware running virtual code in virtual realities. And in that domain,
realities. And in that domain, >> well, maybe can design >> that's a complete uh fantasy. As a
matter of fact, all the machines that we've seen today require maintenance by a human on a daily basis. The software
requires maintenance, the hardware requires maintenance, the parts simply wear out. There are moving parts.
wear out. There are moving parts.
virtual reality seen as one machine was built to be indestructible. The AI will not be located on a CPU. It will be a
distributed intelligence.
>> If 14 people worldwide, the right 14 people decided to stop repairing it. The
worldwide web would go down in three days.
>> I think you >> Anyway, we we could let's say suppose that we could create any future that we wanted. The one you're talking about
wanted. The one you're talking about could only be created if we want it.
Now, I'm just trying to propose an alternative. In the alternative, like
alternative. In the alternative, like the automobile, the machines that we build and ourselves are in co-ependence and co-evolution. The function of the
and co-evolution. The function of the worldwide web is to unite our indep independent spirits and intelligences
in a universal mind of the world which has a higher intelligence than our present social order. That's the
possibility of the cyborg of the human and the machine in essential partnership. But you're assuming that
partnership. But you're assuming that the conscious mind is actually in control of the process. In fact, the the worldwide web is growing under the
influence of many many processes and dynamics, none of which are conscious to any individual. It goes where money
any individual. It goes where money goes. It goes where expertise goes. It
goes. It goes where expertise goes. It
is connected through informationational association, random fluctuation, chaotic reordering of itself. We here give great
uh force to the idea the complex systems can produce unexpected forms of novelty.
And yet we have unchained and unleashed the most complex system ever created in the perfect confidence that we will be able to control its uh its development
and evolution. when in fact history has
and evolution. when in fact history has shown we have never controlled the development and evolution of even our speech and printdriven social systems.
>> I'm certainly not saying that your parano fantasy is an impossibility.
>> Oh well that's all I want to hear. Even
paranoids have enemies.
>> It it may actually come to pass. What
I'm saying is that we are involved in the ongoing creative process which more or less determines the future. I say
more or less because in fact there are evolutionary steps which are completely out of control. Something totally
unexpected may be will happen. But for
much of the time in the past we've seen I think Darwin emphasized this in his later theory that it is ethics it is a moral sense on the part of human which
was the dominant factor in the evolution past the earlier stages in the creation of societies. It was altruism
of societies. It was altruism essentially was involved in going from where we were to where we are. And it could well be
that without uh love for example the further evolution is impossible. Not
only that there will be an unwanted backst step in the evolutionary process but in fact it may be a fatal one. that
it is only through uh proceeding with the best instincts that we have with the highest aspirations
with love with uh best informed view of f future alternatives. So only then can we build a future which is sustainable.
So anybody can build a future which is unsustainable. For example, all those
unsustainable. For example, all those board games and science fiction books, you wouldn't want to try them out on, you know, a country as large as China.
Well, I hardly know where to begin myself because [clears throat] you had six steps in your argument and I I don't agree with any of them. Um,
I mean, first of all, to deal with the first few steps, one would have to go through a lot of fairly familiar material to do with what's wrong with the cartesian mechanistic materialistic
view of the world. Step one, clear thinking, calculating machinery can be formalized. This is an assumption that's
formalized. This is an assumption that's basic to a lot of cognitive psychology.
It's basic to the Carteesian. Decart
himself thought that what made human intellects human was their ability to think logically, clear and distinct ideas, essent essentially mathematical logic.
But however, as we all know, by making that the essential characteristic of human beings, he made the rational intellect, what many people would call the left brain rational intellect, the
sole definition of human beings. It's a
disembodied logical rational intelligence.
So this whole premise on which your whole thing's based is taking that particular model of cognitive logical mathematical processing as being the
essence of intelligence. Now there are many people who would disagree with that including me. There's um it leaves out
including me. There's um it leaves out art, it leaves out ethics, religion and essentially it leaves out the body and everything to do with body and participation and the senses. So there's
a huge amount of critiques of that point of view already around and I there's no point in reiterating them all here but this is a highly disputable starting
point for the whole system. Secondly, um
the emphasis that life depends on DNA information, the DNA code is just a program. This is the central premise of
program. This is the central premise of mechanistic biology which is leading to biotechnology, genetic engineering, Monsanto, etc. This is old paradigm
stuff of the most um extreme kind. It's
reductionism. It's that all life's just DNA programs and code and can therefore be modeled in this kind of programming code manner.
Then there's the assumption that's the second step. The third assumption is
second step. The third assumption is that artificial intelligence used to be dismissed but these criticisms have been overtaken. I don't think that's true of
overtaken. I don't think that's true of the most interesting ones like Roger Penrose's criticism of artificial intelligence. Here's a quantum physicist
intelligence. Here's a quantum physicist who says that if the brain is a computer, then it's not going to be a regular digital computer. It's going to be a quantum computer. And all this kind
of digital computing doesn't really take into account quantum logic. The
computers of the future, people are already working on quantum computers.
And if quantum computers are made, and if they work, they'll work in a completely different way. I think your case would be much stronger if there were quantum computers. I think we'd have sort of morphic resonance telepathy
around the world rather than clogged telephone lines and information that clunks slowly in front of you on this.
>> But you yourself are saying this is coming and I agree.
>> I'm saying that if it comes it'll be quite different from anything that you've talked about. I think it will answer your first objection because the quantum computers will incorporate fuzzy
logic which will exemplify all these warm fuzzy human qualities that you found so appealing.
>> No, I don't think it'll deal I don't think it'll deal with the essential problem that this purely cognitivebased way of modeling intelligence is either an adequate model of human intelligence
or of biological intelligence or of life. um or of a system that could
life. um or of a system that could actually achieve the power to control our existence. I think it's a very
our existence. I think it's a very limited part of what a a mind does. And
um I think therefore that the premises on which this whole Ralph called it a fantasy, a paranoid fantasy, the premises on which this is based
[laughter] >> that helped.
Um, I think the premises on which this are based are old paradigm premises and they're ones that I think there are many reasons for thinking we need to go beyond. I think the internet has
beyond. I think the internet has achieved a great deal, but I just can't see that it's an adequate vehicle for what in your mind precedes the arrival
of the internet, namely this great intelligence that's going to direct human history. I've heard different
human history. I've heard different McKenna versions of this controlling intelligence over the years and this is the first time I've heard it embodied in
the internet. I mean I agree that
the internet. I mean I agree that [laughter] I mean it was it took different forms in last time we talked I think it was a hypothetical time machine that would
invade from the future and cause a a collapse of normal human cognitive boundaries where the machine elves the DMT experience etc would take over in a
meltdown of human consciousness into two >> [laughter] >> Well, perhaps I should just end with a question in this [laughter] comic.
What is the equivalent of DMT for this machine intelligence that's taking over the world?
>> Well, perhaps the human brain will become a model for the ingression of novelty into the machine intelligence.
In other words, there's a lot of both and possibilities here. Uh obviously
nanotechnology and the internet are not going to proceed forward in a vacuum absent uh pharmarmacology complexity
theory so forth and so on. Uh I can imagine that really when we have the kind of internet we want, we will have
no internet at all because our nanotechnological engineering skills will have allowed us to smoothly integrate ourselves into the
already existing dynamic of nature that regulates the planet as a Gian entity as a as a holistic entity.
And I did say in my little presentation, we're using bicycle mechanic terminology to try and describe something that is
several around several corners in terms of scientific and historical developments that have to take place before it will make much sense.
Nevertheless, grant given the acceleration into novelty that is obviously occurring stuff like quantum teleportation and so forth and so on uh
I think in the next few years one by one these these barriers will fall and I don't I don't really think of my vision
as paranoid because it is proninoic in other words it isn't that we're going to be ground up as dog food for the
rainforest by malevolent machines. It's
it's that what we have generated is a sympathetic companion to our journey through time that can actually realistically
integrate our imaginative fantasies of a loving human community, of a generous and loving God, of a perfect knowledge
of the mechanics of nature. This is a prostthesis, a tool, a companion, all of the above plus more that we are
generating out of our selves and it is part of ourselves. I mean yes the body may uh be carried forward only as an
image in a kind offormational superspace or perhaps not. Part of the part of what
makes this easy to criticize is that it is in fact so beyond the ordinary set of circumstances we're used to
manipulating. But if we take the you see
manipulating. But if we take the you see one of Penra's critiques of of the artificial intelligence things in the Emperor's new mind and his other books
is that real intelligence doesn't just involve adding in information and processing more information transmitting more of it. It involves sort of jumps to a higher point of view where the
information can be integrated in a new way. There's something happening in
way. There's something happening in intelligence, in creativity, which is not just lots and lots of information pouring through the worldwide web. And
the idea that it would miraculously emerge from pumping in more and more stuff would not is according to his critique is not going to happen.
Something more than that would be necessary for for this to occur. And um
I don't think that this model you've put forward would really deal with that question. The emergence of real
question. The emergence of real intelligence.
>> Well, I don't know what real intelligence is. This is probably part
intelligence is. This is probably part of the problem. We need to get some definitions. It's certainly true. I
definitions. It's certainly true. I
referred to Drifus's book, What Machines Can't Do that. reaching some some places in the process where certain people's theories and ideas will probably have to
be abandoned and thrown overboard. This
is a good thing. We are going to find out whether the universe is a cartisian machine, whether boolean algebra is sufficient, whether we need fuzzy logic,
whether the heart and the head can or cannot be integrated. These are not going to remain open questions until eternity. In fact, they will be dealt
eternity. In fact, they will be dealt with in this narrow historical mech that we are all experiencing. I think
reductionism will not survive. I think
we are going to find that you know all is in everything. Something like the alchemical notion of the microcosm and the macrocosm is actually going to be
scientifically uh secured. The great
thing about us and the rest of our colleagues we enjoy who aren't present is that we're engaged in the business of radical speculation. Well, obviously
radical speculation. Well, obviously there's a high triage in that game. Uh I
my position is that the best idea will win that and what best means is like saying you know what is fit in Darwinian
rhetoric but that we're in an intellectual environment rapidly mutating all kinds of ideas are are are clashing and competing for limited
resources and the limited number of minds to run themselves on and uh the most efficacious ious, the most transcendental, the most unifying ideas
are naturally going to bubble to the surface. And for guys like us, the name
surface. And for guys like us, the name of the game is to just be a little bit of ahead of everybody else on the curve so that we can perform our function as
prophet. But you want to be a prophet,
prophet. But you want to be a prophet, not a false prophet. But the danger comes uh with the ambition. And there's
no way to tease them apart except to live into the future.
[music] [music] Heat. Heat.
Heat. Heat.
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