The temptation to see the human brain as a kind of machine has been around for a long time. Marvin Minsky, a pioneer in artificial intelligence, used to provocatively call humans “meat machines”. Going further back, one analogy from the pre-computer era described the brain as an “enchanted loom where millions of flashing shuttles weave a dissolving pattern”, as the science writer Michael Pollan describes in his new book A World Appears. So it is no surprise that some people at the forefront of AI now believe their models could soon become conscious. If the brain is akin to a computer, then why wouldn’t a super-powerful computer develop consciousness too?
This is fuzzy territory for technologists to wade into, not least because nobody can agree on what consciousness is, let alone how and why it arises. Indeed, Pollan concluded his 280-page attempt to unravel the “hard problem of consciousness” by admitting that he knew less at the end than he did at the start.
But rather than our new machines ascending to reach truly humanlike qualities, my fear is that we will steadily lower that bar by losing faith in who we are and becoming more like machines ourselves.