3rd March 2016 | Covent Garden
Salon does artificial intelligence.
Transhumanism. Can you Afford to Live Forever?
Many people are banking on living forever, driven by the prediction the technology enabling us to upload our consciousness to a machine will be available as soon as 2043. But, as leading academic Steve Fuller will explain, this reality is already here and if life-extending technology is not made available democratically what’s to stop those who can afford the tech exerting a thousand year rule? Open your mind to the future possibilities and the philosophical questions of replacing the bits of us that don’t last.
Can Machines have Consciousness?
When it comes to AI, why do we never consider consciousness as part of being intelligent? How can machines be smarter than us when we don’t understand huge parts of the human mind? To get to grips with some questions of consciousness we’re bringing in neuroscientist and author of The Ravenous Brain - Daniel Bor. Could our insatiable search for meaning as humans put our intelligence far beyond the reach of machines, even if they can finally beat us at chess?
The banality of AI:
Firstly Robert E Smith is a Senior Research Fellow in UCL’s computer science department and secondly it is his work in artificial intelligence which keeps planes in the sky. Yet he’s very keen we keep our feet on the ground when it comes to his area of expertise. Currently writing the definitive book on AI, he believes we’re not asking the right questions about the meaning of artificial or intelligence. He says it’s not the sexy singularity that we should fear, namely this idea that machines will evolve beyond us, but it’s the banality of artificial intelligence that should terrify us. He will explain exactly why.
At The Hospital Club in Covent Garden, 7pm start, 3rd March.
Covent Garden
Covent Garden, London
WC2H 9HQ
