TCM, this is a beautifully constructed essay, and I find the Pollan/Damasio/Solms argument that consciousness is embodied genuinely compelling. I'd like to add a dimension I think complements your thesis.
The question that may prove most consequential is not whether AI is conscious but whether people perceive it as conscious. And the evidence already indicates that they do. Research consistently shows people ascribe consciousness to AI based on conversational fluency and humanlike behavior—often implicitly, without realizing they're doing it.
When people perceive AI as having agency, they trust it more and form emotional bonds with it. Intense bonds in some cases – witness the uproar over OpenAI’s retiring of ChatGPT 4. People increasingly treat AI as if it has interiority. As Naval said recently, “AI is the great automator, and to automate, it must first imitate. The imitation fools people into thinking it’s alive.”
Your essay draws an elegant line—AI handles the cognitive, humans retain the embodied and relational. I think that's directionally right. But it's worth considering what happens if people experience AI as empathic and present, even though it’s projection. The nurse sitting with a frightened patient is irreplaceable—but only so long as patients and institutions recognize she is. Many already consider AIs more empathic than most people.
This element of the phase change may ultimately be as much about what happens when the attribution of consciousness becomes untethered from its biological source as it is about consciousness itself.
TCM, this is a beautifully constructed essay, and I find the Pollan/Damasio/Solms argument that consciousness is embodied genuinely compelling. I'd like to add a dimension I think complements your thesis.
The question that may prove most consequential is not whether AI is conscious but whether people perceive it as conscious. And the evidence already indicates that they do. Research consistently shows people ascribe consciousness to AI based on conversational fluency and humanlike behavior—often implicitly, without realizing they're doing it.
When people perceive AI as having agency, they trust it more and form emotional bonds with it. Intense bonds in some cases – witness the uproar over OpenAI’s retiring of ChatGPT 4. People increasingly treat AI as if it has interiority. As Naval said recently, “AI is the great automator, and to automate, it must first imitate. The imitation fools people into thinking it’s alive.”
Your essay draws an elegant line—AI handles the cognitive, humans retain the embodied and relational. I think that's directionally right. But it's worth considering what happens if people experience AI as empathic and present, even though it’s projection. The nurse sitting with a frightened patient is irreplaceable—but only so long as patients and institutions recognize she is. Many already consider AIs more empathic than most people.
This element of the phase change may ultimately be as much about what happens when the attribution of consciousness becomes untethered from its biological source as it is about consciousness itself.
piece of art, store it and re-work it again in a few months !
A very good job at weaving a pattern across some seemingly unrelated areas of life.
Mind blown. There's a lot in here that you've curated and added nuance to. Definitely requires a reread.
A profound piece that’s beautifully written. Thank you for sharing!
Great work, even better on second read. I am blessed to interact with you.
Excellent!
One of your best work!
Superb.....again
Excellent!