Could ChatGPT be conscious? | Roger Penrose, Sabrina Gonzalez, and Max Tegmark

Roger Penrose, Sabrina Gonzalez Pasterski, and Max Tegmark discuss consciousness, quantum physics, and the possibility of a sentient superintelligent A.I.

Could ChatGPT be conscious?

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The idea that the brain is computational has, from the outset, been central to neuroscience. Like a computer, the brain is a problem-solving machine that stores memories and processes information. But despite the advances in AI, many challenge whether this analogy captures the essence of the mind. Computers use transistors to build elementary logic gates, enabling them to store files exactly, in 0s and 1s. They are precise and repeatable. Human brains, in contrast, are biological—the neurons do not operate as simple logic gates, but have thousands of inputs, and their output is dependent on past activity and their current internal state. Remove a computer’s processor, and it breaks. But humans can survive with only one brain hemisphere. Fundamentally, brains think, they have perception, and are conscious.

Is it a mistake to see the mind as computational? Are computers, at root, limited machines with little in common with the sophistication of living things? Or have computers and mathematics uncovered the essential character of thought—and perhaps even the cosmos itself?

#consciousness #quantum #neuroscience #quantumphysics #ai #artificialintelligence

Roger Penrose is a world-renowned mathematician, mathematical physicist, philosopher of science and Nobel Laureate in Physics. He is best known for his work on general relativity and black holes, and for his public appearances popularising physics and philosophy.

Max Tegmark is a Swedish‑American MIT physicist and cosmologist, and president and co-founder of the Future of Life Institute. He is known for championing the Mathematical Universe Hypothesis and pioneering the notion of consciousness as a state of matter.

Sabrina Gonzalez Pasterski is a theoretical physicist at the Perimeter Institute whose work on space, time, and gravity has been cited by Stephen Hawking. She now leads efforts to encode the universe as a hologram, a bold step toward uniting quantum theory with general relativity.

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00:00 "We need to finish the physics"
00:27 Max Tegmark on whether computers could be conscious
01:44 Sabrina Gonzalez Pasterski questions the hardware of consciousness
02:46 Consciousness vs Biology
04:07 Roger Penrose on microtubules and the mind-body problem
05:22 The collapse of the wave function and quantum consciousness
09:13 Consciousness as information processing
12:12 Differences between the human mind and artificial intelligence
14:38 A.I. as a digital God vs a valuable tool
17:18 At what point could we claim that A.I. is conscious?
20:58 If an A.I. claimed to be conscious, would and should we believe them?

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