Event
About the talk
Artificial intelligence systems—especially large language models, giant neural networks trained to predict text from the internet—have recently shown remarkable abilities. There has been widespread discussion of whether some of these language models might be sentient. Should we take this idea seriously? David Chalmers discusses the underlying issue and tries to break down the strongest reasons for and against.
About the speaker
David Chalmers is University Professor of Philosophy and Neural Science and co-director of the Center for Mind, Brain, and Consciousness at NYU. He is the author of The Conscious Mind (1996), Constructing the World (2010), and Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy (2022). He co-founded the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness and the PhilPapers Foundation. He is known for formulating the “hard problem” of consciousness, which inspired Tom Stoppard’s play The Hard Problem, and for the idea of the “extended mind,” which says that the tools we use can become parts of our minds.
Thank you to our co-sponsors for their generous support of this event:
NYU Center for Bioethics
NYU Center for Mind, Brain, and Consciousness
NYU Minds, Brains, and Machines Initiative
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