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Joscha Bach: Artificial Consciousness and the Nature of Reality | Lex Fridman Podcast #101
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Joscha Bach: Artificial Consciousness and the Nature of Reality | Lex Fridman Podcast #101

Joscha Bach is the VP of Research at the AI Foundation, previously doing research at MIT and Harvard.

Lex FridmanhostJoscha Bachguest
Jun 13, 20203h 0mWatch on YouTube

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Episode Details

EPISODE INFO

Released
June 13, 2020
Duration
3h 0m
Channel
Lex Fridman Podcast
Watch on YouTube
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EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Joscha Bach is the VP of Research at the AI Foundation, previously doing research at MIT and Harvard. Joscha work explores the workings of the human mind, intelligence, consciousness, life on Earth, and the possibly-simulated fabric of our universe. Support this podcast by signing up with these sponsors:

Incredible comment by ernst.gemeint showing some of the topics mentioned: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-2P3MSZrBM&lc=UgzzoW0z_tyeLyatEJB4AaABAg EPISODE LINKS: Joscha's Twitter: https://twitter.com/Plinz Joscha's Website: http://bach.ai/ PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ Full episodes playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOdP_8GztsuKi9nrraNbKKp4 Clips playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOeciFP3CBCIEElOJeitOr41 OUTLINE: 0:00 - Introduction 3:14 - Reverse engineering Joscha Bach 10:38 - Nature of truth 18:47 - Original thinking 23:14 - Sentience vs intelligence 31:45 - Mind vs Reality 46:51 - Hard problem of consciousness 51:09 - Connection between the mind and the universe 56:29 - What is consciousness 1:02:32 - Language and concepts 1:09:02 - Meta-learning 1:16:35 - Spirit 1:18:10 - Our civilization may not exist for long 1:37:48 - Twitter and social media 1:44:52 - What systems of government might work well? 1:47:12 - The way out of self-destruction with AI 1:55:18 - AI simulating humans to understand its own nature 2:04:32 - Reinforcement learning 2:09:12 - Commonsense reasoning 2:15:47 - Would AGI need to have a body? 2:22:34 - Neuralink 2:27:01 - Reasoning at the scale of neurons and societies 2:37:16 - Role of emotion 2:48:03 - Happiness is a cookie that your brain bakes for itself CONNECT:

SPEAKERS

  • Lex Fridman

    host
  • Joscha Bach

    guest

EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of Lex Fridman Podcast, featuring Lex Fridman and Joscha Bach, Joscha Bach: Artificial Consciousness and the Nature of Reality | Lex Fridman Podcast #101 explores Joscha Bach explores minds, meaning, AI, and our doomed civilization Joscha Bach and Lex Fridman range across artificial intelligence, human consciousness, philosophy, and the possible simulation-like nature of reality. Bach argues that minds are essentially software, consciousness is a self-model of attention, and intelligence is the capacity to build predictive models—including of oneself. He contrasts today’s statistical “advanced information processing” with the deeper philosophical project of AI: a system that can understand and explain intelligence, its own nature, and the universe that can contain it. Woven through is a stark ecological and civilizational pessimism: Bach suspects industrial society is unsustainable, that we’re on a kind of “last level” for humanity, yet still sees meaning in building a sustainable civilization and understanding ourselves.

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