A sober-minded philosophical exploration of what AI can and cannot achieve

Humans may not be Earth’s most intelligent beings for a lot longer: the globe champions of chess, Move, and Jeopardy! are actually all AIs. Provided the rapid pace of improvement in AI, many predict that it might progress to human-level intelligence next many decades. Following that, it might quickly outpace individual intelligence. What perform these developments mean for the future of the mind?

In Artificial You, Susan Schneider says about Artificial You: AI and the Future of Your Mind that it’s unavoidable that AI will need intelligence in fresh directions, but urges that it’s up to us to carve away a sensible path forward. As AI technology turns inward, reshaping the brain, aswell as outward, possibly creating machine minds, it is crucial to beware. Homo sapiens, as mind designers, will become playing with ‘tools’ they do not understand how to use: the self, the mind, and consciousness. Schneider argues an insufficient grasp of the nature of the entities could undermine the use of AI and mind enhancement technology, causing the demise or suffering of conscious beings. To flourish, we must understand the philosophical issues lying under the algorithms.

At the heart of her exploration is a sober-minded dialogue of what AI can truly achieve: Can robots really be conscious? Can we merge with AI, as tech market leaders like Elon Musk and Ray Kurzweil recommend? Is the brain just a plan? Analyzing these thorny issues, Schneider proposes ways we can check for machine awareness, questions whether consciousness is an unavoidable byproduct of advanced cleverness, and considers the overall dangers of fabricating machine minds.