Conscious AI Meetup: Intuition Pumps, or Why Everyone Knows that Machines Cannot be Conscious

​The California Institute for Machine Consciousness welcomes you to another salon in the Digital Garage.

​Can Searle's room, filled with books and an algorithm, understand Chinese? Would Mary the neuroscientist learn anything from experience that she cannot deduce from studying brains? Can a machine built from pipes, valves and water have feelings and a self? If we were to slice such a machine in half, what happens to its identity?

The late philosopher Daniel Dennett coined the term "intuition pump" to describe thought experiments that lead us to strongly feel that AI and computationalist cognitive science are pursuing a dead end.

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Together with our somewhat skeptical guests Dan Girshovich and Leander Rust, Joscha Bach will explore some of the arguments that let us doubt and question the possibility of machine consciousness.

​We appreciate if you bring non-alcoholic drinks and some snacks.