The webinar, titled "The Future of Minds: AI and Consciousness," featured a captivating talk by Professor Jelinek, who delved deep into the intricacies of artificial intelligence and its implications on the understanding of consciousness.
Title: What Would It Take For AI To Become Conscious - Understanding AI's Limits and Possible Directions
The question of AI and consciousness is one of the most profound, as it concerns human nature and our understanding of reality. In this talk, I will trace four major positions: from those (1) who reject the possibility altogether, presupposing that consciousness can only emerge from the specific biological conditions of the human brain; to those (2) who argue the opposite, suggesting that consciousness is a universal property: a mind-at-large that precedes physical form; and to those (3) who regard the mind as a continuum and intelligence as a problem-solving capability that can be discovered in evolutionary, bio-engineered, and even artificial systems, with the latter two leading to radically different forms of minds and bodies. Finally, I will explore a fourth view (4) that also treats consciousness as primary – but not as a biologically emergent feature (as in 1), but as something virtual and a functional prerequisite for learning. Since human learning cannot occur without mind, this view implies the existence of a deeper generative structure: a coherence-inducing, self-organising virtual process instantiated as learning arises. Taken together, these four views of consciousness – emergent (physicalist), universal (interface), multiscale (hybrid), and simulated (computational) – serve as departure points for clarifying the limits of today’s AI and for exploring possible future directions.