Elon Musk: Consciousness
00:00:00.000 | Let's start with an easy question about consciousness.
00:00:05.600 | In your view, is consciousness something that's unique to humans, or is it something that
00:00:09.760 | permeates all matter, almost like a fundamental force of physics?
00:00:13.760 | I don't think consciousness permeates all matter.
00:00:16.920 | Panpsychists believe that.
00:00:18.320 | Yeah.
00:00:19.320 | There's a philosophical...
00:00:20.320 | How would you tell?
00:00:21.320 | That's true.
00:00:22.320 | That's a good point.
00:00:23.320 | I believe in the scientific method.
00:00:24.320 | I don't know about your mind or anything, but the scientific method is like, if you
00:00:28.920 | cannot test the hypothesis, then you cannot reach a meaningful conclusion that it is true.
00:00:34.040 | Do you think understanding consciousness is within the reach of science, of the scientific
00:00:40.280 | method?
00:00:41.720 | We can dramatically improve our understanding of consciousness.
00:00:46.200 | You know, I'd be hard-pressed to say that we understand anything with complete accuracy,
00:00:51.160 | but can we dramatically improve our understanding of consciousness?
00:00:54.280 | I believe the answer is yes.
00:00:57.400 | Does an AI system, in your view, have to have consciousness in order to achieve human
00:01:01.960 | level or superhuman level intelligence?
00:01:05.000 | Does it need to have some of these human qualities like consciousness, maybe a body, maybe a
00:01:09.960 | fear of mortality, capacity to love, those kinds of silly human things?
00:01:17.680 | It's different.
00:01:21.680 | You know, there's the scientific method, which I very much believe in, where something is
00:01:26.120 | true to the degree that it is testably so, and otherwise you're really just talking about
00:01:36.280 | preferences or untestable beliefs or that kind of thing.
00:01:42.280 | So it ends up being somewhat of a semantic question where we are conflating a lot of
00:01:49.200 | things with the word intelligence.
00:01:51.240 | If we parse them out and say, are we headed towards a future where an AI will be able
00:02:01.400 | to outthink us in every way?
00:02:05.480 | Then the answer is unequivocally yes.
00:02:09.540 | In order for an AI system that needs to outthink us in every way, it also needs to have a capacity
00:02:16.340 | to have consciousness, self-awareness, and understanding.
00:02:19.760 | It will be self-aware, yes.
00:02:22.200 | That's different from consciousness.
00:02:23.200 | I mean, to me, in terms of what consciousness feels like, it feels like consciousness is
00:02:28.680 | in a different dimension.
00:02:30.520 | But this could be just an illusion.
00:02:36.000 | If you damage your brain in some way physically, you damage your consciousness, which implies
00:02:42.700 | that consciousness is a physical phenomenon, in my view.
00:02:48.120 | The thing is that I think are really quite likely is that digital intelligence will be
00:02:53.720 | able to outthink us in every way.
00:02:56.440 | And it will still be able to simulate what we consider consciousness to a degree that
00:03:01.600 | you would not be able to tell the difference.
00:03:03.520 | And from the aspect of the scientific method, it might as well be consciousness if we can
00:03:08.120 | simulate it perfectly.
00:03:10.120 | If you can't tell the difference, and this is sort of the Turing test, but think of a
00:03:14.960 | more sort of advanced version of the Turing test.
00:03:18.080 | If you're talking to a digital superintelligence and can't tell if that is a computer or a human,
00:03:26.520 | like let's say you're just having a conversation over a phone or a video conference or something
00:03:32.000 | where you think you're talking, it looks like a person makes all of the right inflections
00:03:39.840 | and movements and all the small subtleties that constitute a human and talks like a human,
00:03:48.760 | makes mistakes like a human, and you literally just can't tell.
00:03:53.240 | Are you video conferencing with a person or an AI?
00:04:00.000 | Might as well.
00:04:01.000 | Might as well.
00:04:02.000 | Be human.
00:04:02.160 | Be human.
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