Why I believe current AI models can really think and understand - Part 2 of 3 - By Andy Masley

In the second of three parts, Andy Masley builds the case that a computer can, in principle, really think and understand. Starting from the idea that minds are things physical systems do, he asks why every mind we know of happens to be made of carbon, what neuroscience and Alan Turing tell us about simulating a brain, and whether a perfect simulation of thinking is thinking. Along the way he puts the classic objections, from Leibniz’s mill to Searle’s Chinese Room, through a simple “brain test”: if an argument would also prove that you can’t think, something has gone wrong. * 00:00 - Introduction * 03:18 - Why computers can in principle produce thinking and understanding * 03:24 - What are minds made of? * 03:27 - Can physical objects think? * 06:47 - Implications of minds existing in purely physical objects * 10:46 - Information theory * 14:05 - Does an object need to be made of a specific material to think? * 19:04 - What would actually happen in this thought experiment? * 23:20 - Is carbon required for thought? * 23:24 - Evolution and carbon * 38:30 - Carbon is itself just a specific arrangement of smaller parts * 42:25 - Some takeaways from neuroscience * 43:30 - Thinking and understanding each happen in the brain through neurons passing information to each other * 44:40 - What matters about those signals is the information they carry, rather than the stuff carrying it * 46:45 - The brain’s information processing can be described with ordinary classical physics. It doesn’t seem to rely on special quantum effects * 49:02 - It seems like thought and understanding have to be specific information flows in the brain * 51:12 - Some takeaways from computer science * 54:42 - Would a simulated mind be able to really think and understand? * 01:05:17 - Programs aren’t just in the eye of the beholder * 01:08:26 - What do people mean when they say “the brain is not a computer”? * 01:18:10 - But isn’t the brain analog? * 01:19:26 - A lot of arguments that computer processes can’t think are arguments that any physical system can’t think * 01:38:39 - Conclusion https://open.substack.com/pub/andymasley/p/why-i-believe-current-ai-models-can-d63?r=67y1h&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web Get full access to Askwho Casts AI at askwhocastsai.substack.com/subscribe