Is it Possible to Engineer Artificial Consciousness? | Karl Friston & Mark Solms

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Professor Mark Solms, Professor
Cole Friston, thank you so much

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for joining me one more time on
the show.

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You have both been part of the
show for so many years now and

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it's a privilege and honor for
me to host the both of you on

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the show together.
So thank you so much for joining

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me.
What I figured we'd do is my

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role will be very minimal.
I'll try to give prompts when

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needed if needed.
But for the most part, I think

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most of the people TuneIn to
listen and watch you guys and

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the topic today is something
we're we're all thinking about.

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We're all talking about it.
Is it possible to engineer

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artificial consciousness?
I think it's a fitting topic for

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the two of you, both pioneers in
this field.

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And I think to start this off,
we should begin with some

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foundational definitions.
How do you perhaps call you

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could begin.
How do you define intelligence

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and how do you define
consciousness?

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Right.
Well, that's I'll start off with

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the easy ones, then Mark can
take the the difficult ones.

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I'm being ironic.
So intelligence, well certainly

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natural intelligence is in my
world just inference.

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It's just sense making within an
inactive aspect.

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So there's also decision making
that's predicated on that sense

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making and therefore can be
described in terms of inference

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or self evidencing.
As Jacob Howard would like to

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say, it's from the physicist
perspective.

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This is a particular kind of
self organization or a

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particular reading of self
organization and a a particular

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petition into self and non self
or something and something else

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that has that can be
mathematically described as the

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Bayesian mechanics.
And that Bayesian mechanics, I

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repeat, can be interpreted in
terms of inferring the causes of

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your sensations and deciding
what to do in order to solicit

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the right kind of sensations to
engineer or author your own

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sensorium in order to make the
best sense of it, in order to

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make the best decision.
So there's a inherent circuit

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causality in the self
organization if you survive and

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you survive as an agent.
And for me, an agent would be a

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system that can be read as
possessing or acting as if it

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had a world or a generative
model of the consequences of its

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own actions.
So it has a a model of its own

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private future and it has to
select particular paths into the

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future.
So it's a future pointing kind

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of inference that is private to
the individual, the agent or the

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intelligent artefact in
question.

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Consciousness, I, I, you know,
you should be asking Mark this.

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So consciousness I think is, you
know, is something else,

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especially if you're talking
about phenomenology or feelings.

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And one would have to identify
the particular attributes of the

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generative models in play that
must be have this future

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pointing agentic aspect in order
to qualify and support either

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consciousness in a vague sense
that it could be different

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levels of consciousness.
Or if you want to draw a bright

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line between things that are
self aware or indeed are just

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aware in, in, in a, in a
phenomenal sense, you'd have to

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identify what parts of their
world model, equip them with the

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capacity to feel and to and to
experience.

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And then I'll I'll hand over to
Mark for what that particular

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architectural feature would be.
Thanks.

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Thanks, Tevin.
Thanks, Carl.

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Let me start by commenting on
your introductory remark, Tevin,

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that you're probably going to
say very little because people

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are interested in what Carl and
I have to say.

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I tell you, what worries me is
that, and, and this is going to

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be interesting from my point of
view if I'm wrong, but what

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worries me is that Carl and I
are going to agree on

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everything.
And so it therefore won't be

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very interesting to hear us
echoing each other, but maybe we

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won't.
And so, so let's see what

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happens.
But that's what I, what I

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anticipate.
And to, to illustrate the point,

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everything that Carl just said I
agree with, but I will try to,

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unlike Carl, us S Africans will
speak English instead of,

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instead of active inferees.
And also I'll try and I'll try

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and keep it simple.
To me, I mean, although I really

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do agree with everything that
Carl said, I, I, I, I don't

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think in such a complex
technical way as he does.

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So for me, the intelligence
which comes by degrees is

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capacity to solve problems.
And I of course, I understand

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why you're asking us these
questions.

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It's because you're setting up
the difference between

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artificial intelligence and and
artificial consciousness.

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So intelligence is the capacity
to solve problems.

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And those problems can be as
narrow as how to play chess, or

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it could be something much more
general.

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And that's, you know, that's the
where, where, where things get

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interesting.
And This is why I say

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intelligence, You know, it comes
in, in, in, in degrees.

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The current artificial
intelligences don't have that

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much intelligence because they
can only do very narrow things.

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Now consciousness, I define that
as the capacity to feel like

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something.
In other words, I followed

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Nagle's definition.
A system is conscious if and

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only if there's something it is
like to be such a system,

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something it is like for such a
system.

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And that's a very elementary
definition in, in both senses of

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the word.
Elementary in that it's simple,

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and elementary in that it's
talking about the most simple

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form of consciousness.
I mean, you don't need our human

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type of consciousness to to, to
meet that definition.

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You just have to be able to feel
like something.

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There's some quality, some
phenomenal experiential property

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to being a thing that is
conscious.

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It doesn't have to be able to
reflect upon it.

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It doesn't even have to know
that it is a thing in the sense

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of having any consciousness of
that of its own being.

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It just has to feel like
something to be it.

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But I hasten to add, because
this is what leads to so much

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confusion, that of course there
are there are layers upon layers

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of complexity that can be super
added to feeling.

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And then you get things like
human consciousness, which

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unfortunately too many people,
even people in our field take as

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their kind of model example.
It's it's what they have in mind

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when they use the word.
And I think that this is

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unfortunate.
Mark But I, I completely agree

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and I think that's part of the
reason why I wanted you guys to

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chat is it's because I'm not the
listeners are quite familiar

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with the story, but when I wrote
my dissertation, you and Carl

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were cited many times and often
times together in the same

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paper.
So it makes a lot of sense that

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you guys would think alike.
But I think it's still going to

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be valuable and I think people
are going to take a lot away

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from this.
With that being said, Carl, you

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have the free energy principle,
which describes adaptive systems

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and minimizing surprise.
And then Mark, you place affect

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or feeling at the very core of
conscious experience with if we

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were to design a system that
does both, let's say minimizes

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free energy and generates active
effective states, sorry, would

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that system be conscious or
would this be via mimicry?

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Or would this be a what?
Mimicry.

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So something that that makes
consciousness.

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So who?
Who?

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Who are you asking that?
Question, would you like to

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stop?
Oh, right, yes.

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So I think before trying to give
you an answer to that question,

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I think it's important to to
state before we go any further

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that consciousness, however read
is not something that you can

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know of something else.
I mean, you know, common sense

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tells you that is true, but it's
also mathematically true under

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the free energy principle in the
sense that the only things you

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can read about the internal
machinations of an agent are

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exposed on their mark off
blanket or on their, well,

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specifically the states that act
upon the world because you are

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part of the world from the point
of view of the agent.

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So you can only ever infer
something is conscious and that

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requires the observer.
So what I'm doing is developing

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a very observational relational
position just to acknowledge

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you.
You will never know which is

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going to be interesting in
relation to machine

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consciousness.
So that that means that, you

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know, the observer has to have
the fantasy, the hypothesis, the

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construct as part of their
explanatory repertoire to make

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the inference that this thing
IEU is conscious.

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So that puts a special, if you
like it, contextualises, I

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think, discussions about
consciousness.

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Only conscious artefacts can
ever recognise consciousness in

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another, and that recognition is
just another act of

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intelligence.
It's just an act of inference.

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It's an explanation.
You know, this explanation that

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this thing is conscious in the
sense that I am conscious is a

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good enough explanation to
explain all the observable

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behaviour.
So there is no ground truth

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here.
And I think that sort of takes

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up a lot of pressure of what
could become quite toxic

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arguments and certainly machine
consciousness and machine

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welfare.
You cannot adopt A

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fundamentalist position on
consciousness because by

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definition you will never know.
But it also means that these

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debates about machine
consciousness or aspirations to

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build or discussions about could
1 build machine consciousness

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can only be had by people who
subscribe to the notion that

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consciousness is a suitable
fantasy or hypothesis to explain

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certain kinds of self
organization.

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I probably wanted a bit off
point there, but I I enjoyed

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making that point.
But can you remind me what your

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question was?
And so if we were to design a

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system that minimizes free
energy and and effective states,

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is this a conscious system?
Yeah.

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Well, I mean, so you know, from
the point of view of what I've

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just said, yes and no.
Yeah, it will, if it mimics

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consciousness to a suitably
accurate extent, you will

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certainly infer it is conscious
and that's as far as anybody

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could go.
So, you know, just to make this

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really, really, really concrete,
you know, I'm, I'm pretty sure

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that you're conscious.
Pretty sure, you know, you know,

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I can't be 100% sure, but I, I
could certainly put a sort of

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base incredible interval around
it.

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And, you know, and it would be
all the evidence would be very,

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very strong with a base factor
of, say, above 5.

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What about a microbe living in
your gut?

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You know, I'm not so sure.
It might be some, you know, in

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some sort of pan psychic or some
very elemental sense.

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But now my confidence in the
inference that the microbe is

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conscious is sufficiently small
that I have no qualms about

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poisoning it with antibiotics,
whereas I would have great

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qualms about poisoning you
because you are sufficiently

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like me to provide enough
evidence that you might be

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conscious, you know, like, like
I am.

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So I think I wouldn't decry
mimicry.

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You know, mimicry is just
reproducing the kind of evidence

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that that satisfies a particular
hypothesis that is the basis of

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inference.
So to if you are sufficiently

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good mimic, then you know to all
intents and purposes, under the

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condition that you can only
infer something is conscious,

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yes, it would be conscious.
Mark, anything about that you'd

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like to add on?
Yes, I, I want to first of all

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reiterate what I said at the
beginning.

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I'm looking forward to learning
whether there's anything on this

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topic that Carl and I disagree
about.

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And, and I mean that seriously,
you know, I, I, I would be very

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keen to know if there is
anything we disagree about so

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far not but, but I, you know, I,
I'd come at things in a slightly

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different way from Carl.
And so let me, let me address

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the same question in my own way.
And, and I will, I will

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emphasize, well, I will, I will
culminate my, my, what I say

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will, it leads me to say
something about mimicry because

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I think that's the, that's the
crux of your question.

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Because the way that you've
formulated your question before

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you use the word mimicry, I
thought, well, it's a sort of,

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you know, the, the, the question
answers itself.

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You know, when you say if you
have a free energy, free energy

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minimizing system functioning by
active inference on the basis of

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its generative model, etcetera,
etcetera, and it also has

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affect, you said then would it
be conscious?

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And I thought, well, if it has
affect, yes, of course it's

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conscious.
Because as I just said earlier,

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for me, you know, the, the, the
most basic form of consciousness

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is feeling.
In other words, affect.

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I like the word feeling because
it leaves one in no doubt that

230
00:15:05,280 --> 00:15:06,800
it's something that must be
conscious.

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00:15:06,800 --> 00:15:08,600
You can't have a feeling that
you don't feel.

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So affect is a kind of
functional term.

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00:15:11,680 --> 00:15:13,840
Feeling is a descriptive term,
you know.

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00:15:14,240 --> 00:15:19,680
And so if we're using the word
affect and feeling synonymously,

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00:15:19,680 --> 00:15:23,480
then such a system that has
affect must be conscious.

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00:15:25,280 --> 00:15:33,160
The the problem, though, arises
exactly with the issue that Carl

237
00:15:33,160 --> 00:15:37,560
just raised, which is, you know,
the inevitable issue that we

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00:15:37,560 --> 00:15:41,480
have to address early on in a
discussion of the kind that

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00:15:41,480 --> 00:15:44,720
we're having today.
It is how would you ever know?

240
00:15:45,760 --> 00:15:49,840
How would you know from the
functionality of a system

241
00:15:49,920 --> 00:15:52,840
whether or not it's conscious?
Because consciousness, by

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00:15:52,840 --> 00:15:56,200
definition, that is something
that can only be observed

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00:15:56,360 --> 00:15:59,400
subjectively.
You know, if consciousness is

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00:15:59,400 --> 00:16:03,440
the is the property of the being
of a system, then only the

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00:16:03,440 --> 00:16:08,080
system can, can register it in
an, in an empirical, in a direct

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00:16:08,080 --> 00:16:10,200
empirical way.
In other words, actually feel

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00:16:10,200 --> 00:16:14,960
the feelings.
And as Carl said, you know, we

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00:16:14,960 --> 00:16:18,120
can't be sure that each other
are conscious.

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00:16:18,120 --> 00:16:22,520
We can only be sure that each of
us is for, for, for that very

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00:16:22,520 --> 00:16:25,640
reason.
But, you know, now I'd like to

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00:16:26,560 --> 00:16:30,640
pause for a moment and say, come
on, let's not be silly.

252
00:16:30,840 --> 00:16:33,960
You know, I mean, it's, it's
only philosophers say things

253
00:16:33,960 --> 00:16:37,040
like this.
I can't be sure that Kevin Myers

254
00:16:37,040 --> 00:16:41,080
conscious, for heaven's sake,
that in, in, in reality, you

255
00:16:41,080 --> 00:16:42,800
know, I don't doubt it for a
moment.

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00:16:43,560 --> 00:16:48,200
I can't know it as an absolute,
empirically, demonstrably,

257
00:16:48,240 --> 00:16:52,040
observably true fact.
But it's absurd to doubt it.

258
00:16:53,600 --> 00:16:59,680
And I, I would say it's absurd
to dot consciousness in

259
00:16:59,680 --> 00:17:02,640
certainly all mammals and
certainly all vertebrates,

260
00:17:03,520 --> 00:17:09,040
because it is such a reasonable
inference from my own experience

261
00:17:09,040 --> 00:17:13,560
and from what I know about the,
the, the, the mechanistic basis

262
00:17:13,560 --> 00:17:16,000
of my own experience.
What I know about the

263
00:17:16,000 --> 00:17:20,880
mechanistic basis of my own
experience is that I mean on

264
00:17:20,880 --> 00:17:24,760
because I believe all human
beings, the three of us are all

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00:17:24,760 --> 00:17:27,240
conscious.
What is it that makes us all

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00:17:27,240 --> 00:17:29,200
human beings?
Well, Karl says, well, we behave

267
00:17:29,200 --> 00:17:31,120
like each other, we look like
each other, and so on.

268
00:17:31,400 --> 00:17:34,920
But you know, it's
scientifically more to the point

269
00:17:35,160 --> 00:17:41,200
is the fact that we all have the
same structures in our brains

270
00:17:42,080 --> 00:17:47,240
that we know empirically in the
case of humans on the basis of

271
00:17:47,240 --> 00:17:50,040
all sorts of methods.
You know, we know that if you

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00:17:50,040 --> 00:17:55,600
lesion that it will produce a
coma, if you stimulate that it

273
00:17:55,600 --> 00:17:59,960
will produce in an intense state
of arousal with affective

274
00:17:59,960 --> 00:18:02,520
quality.
These things have been

275
00:18:02,520 --> 00:18:04,600
demonstrated time and time
again.

276
00:18:04,880 --> 00:18:10,840
Therefore, I I start on the
absolutely reasonable assumption

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00:18:10,840 --> 00:18:16,760
that any other creature with the
same anatomical infrastructure

278
00:18:17,680 --> 00:18:20,840
that it's going to have the same
functionality as me.

279
00:18:21,280 --> 00:18:24,480
It's behavior suggests it just
on ordinary naturalistic

280
00:18:24,480 --> 00:18:27,560
behavior.
But more interestingly, I can

281
00:18:27,560 --> 00:18:31,280
make predictions and I can say
because I know that stimulation

282
00:18:31,280 --> 00:18:36,320
of this in human beings produces
intensely negative affective

283
00:18:36,320 --> 00:18:40,360
experiences, I predict that if I
stimulate this in that creature,

284
00:18:40,600 --> 00:18:42,280
it's going to avoid the
stimulus.

285
00:18:42,640 --> 00:18:46,480
And you know, conversely, with
those that produce intensely and

286
00:18:46,520 --> 00:18:50,400
you know, the, the, the, the,
the prediction is, is, is is

287
00:18:50,400 --> 00:18:52,400
confirmed every upheld every
time.

288
00:18:52,840 --> 00:18:55,720
So the answer the scientific
answer by the ordinary

289
00:18:55,720 --> 00:18:58,400
scientific method, you know, in
other words, falsifiable

290
00:18:58,400 --> 00:19:02,280
predictions.
It's it's it's confirmed every

291
00:19:02,280 --> 00:19:07,640
time the problem starts for me.
I mean, let me pause.

292
00:19:07,640 --> 00:19:10,800
Sorry, I'm probably overstating
over elaborating this, but this

293
00:19:10,800 --> 00:19:13,240
is such a fundamental thing.
You know this problem of other

294
00:19:13,240 --> 00:19:16,800
minds issue to our whole
discussion.

295
00:19:17,440 --> 00:19:24,240
The, the, the, even that, what
I've said so far, it's amazing

296
00:19:24,920 --> 00:19:30,040
how many people are skeptical.
Neuroscientists are skeptical

297
00:19:30,240 --> 00:19:35,280
about consciousness in some
other mammals and consciousness

298
00:19:35,600 --> 00:19:39,560
in even more of them, you know,
in, in, in all vertebrates.

299
00:19:39,920 --> 00:19:41,920
They, they, they're very dubious
about it.

300
00:19:41,920 --> 00:19:46,280
Many colleagues, you know, when
I, I, I have absolutely no

301
00:19:46,840 --> 00:19:50,360
hesitation.
I have as little hesitation as I

302
00:19:50,360 --> 00:19:52,800
have about whether Termin and
Carl are conscious.

303
00:19:53,680 --> 00:19:58,400
I have as little hesitation as
to whether a zebra fish is

304
00:19:58,400 --> 00:20:01,640
conscious because it's got the
same anatomy.

305
00:20:02,040 --> 00:20:03,680
The, the crucial anatomy is
there.

306
00:20:03,840 --> 00:20:08,560
And when you do, when you
intervene, the predictions that

307
00:20:08,560 --> 00:20:11,560
you expect, the behavioural
outcomes that you expect are

308
00:20:11,560 --> 00:20:16,000
always, always confirmed.
But even there, there's,

309
00:20:16,040 --> 00:20:19,120
there's, there's what, what I'm
going to just call prejudice,

310
00:20:19,520 --> 00:20:22,320
you know, it's anthropocentric
prejudice.

311
00:20:24,040 --> 00:20:28,400
Or or, or, or, or or primate
centric prejudice or, you know,

312
00:20:28,400 --> 00:20:31,560
something like that.
That's, that's the nub of the

313
00:20:31,560 --> 00:20:33,440
matter.
Because as soon as you move

314
00:20:33,440 --> 00:20:40,040
beyond vertebrates and you know,
there's some very good

315
00:20:40,040 --> 00:20:43,040
candidates for consciousness of
beyond vertebrates.

316
00:20:43,040 --> 00:20:46,080
Like for example, you know, the
octopus is the, is the, is the

317
00:20:46,080 --> 00:20:49,800
creature that is most commonly
invoked in this, in, in this

318
00:20:49,920 --> 00:20:52,640
context.
But you know, if, if, if you

319
00:20:52,640 --> 00:20:55,880
look at the literature, there's,
there's pretty good evidence

320
00:20:56,360 --> 00:21:01,840
that a lot of invertebrates are,
you know, might be conscious and

321
00:21:01,840 --> 00:21:03,880
the but the prejudices are
enormous.

322
00:21:04,480 --> 00:21:08,960
And, and from, from this point
onwards, once we go beyond

323
00:21:08,960 --> 00:21:13,400
vertebrates, I think that the,
the, the problem is not only

324
00:21:13,400 --> 00:21:18,880
prejudice, it's also that you,
you, you lose the, the, the,

325
00:21:19,080 --> 00:21:25,480
the, the obvious grounds for
testing predictions by, by, by

326
00:21:25,480 --> 00:21:30,880
homology, because they don't
have homologous anatomy or they,

327
00:21:31,080 --> 00:21:33,800
or their anatomy is, is, you
know, it's, it's, it's much more

328
00:21:33,800 --> 00:21:36,880
questionable whether these are
true homologs of the crucial

329
00:21:36,880 --> 00:21:40,440
structures in humans.
And so you got to start using

330
00:21:40,520 --> 00:21:44,640
other criteria.
And so it ends up becoming

331
00:21:44,640 --> 00:21:48,240
functional criteria.
And, and, and, and how are we

332
00:21:48,240 --> 00:21:52,880
going to agree on what are the
functional criteria by which to,

333
00:21:54,240 --> 00:21:57,440
to measure this question or to
decide this question?

334
00:21:57,800 --> 00:22:01,880
Because the functional criteria
vary depending on your

335
00:22:01,880 --> 00:22:05,360
particular mechanistic
understanding of how

336
00:22:05,360 --> 00:22:07,600
consciousness works, what
consciousness is.

337
00:22:07,920 --> 00:22:13,600
So we, we're in, so the, the,
the, the best we can do there is

338
00:22:13,720 --> 00:22:16,280
we have to in advance.
And when I say the best we can

339
00:22:16,280 --> 00:22:19,000
do, I mean if we're going to
function follow ordinary

340
00:22:19,000 --> 00:22:22,840
scientific method, the best we
can do is agree a reasonable

341
00:22:23,160 --> 00:22:27,640
number of experts.
It would have to agree in

342
00:22:27,640 --> 00:22:33,560
advance on a reasonable set of
criteria by which they would say

343
00:22:33,560 --> 00:22:37,600
if you meet X number or if your
system meets X number of these

344
00:22:37,600 --> 00:22:41,240
criteria, then we're going to
have to give it the benefit of

345
00:22:41,240 --> 00:22:44,920
the dot.
And it has to be done in advance

346
00:22:44,920 --> 00:22:47,400
because that's as close as you
can come to what what I was

347
00:22:47,400 --> 00:22:50,480
saying about the paradigm of
falsifiable predictions.

348
00:22:51,160 --> 00:22:55,520
These are no longer predictions
from anatomical homology, but

349
00:22:55,520 --> 00:23:00,640
rather predictions from
reasonable functionalist and

350
00:23:01,040 --> 00:23:04,240
what behaviours you would expect
on the basis of, you know,

351
00:23:04,240 --> 00:23:07,040
reasonable functionalist
assumptions.

352
00:23:07,240 --> 00:23:09,640
So I think that's that's the
best we can do.

353
00:23:09,960 --> 00:23:14,400
But to come now finally to the
question of mimicry, I think

354
00:23:14,400 --> 00:23:17,560
that there there are two things
that I want to say.

355
00:23:18,040 --> 00:23:20,280
The one is maybe they're the
same thing.

356
00:23:20,520 --> 00:23:27,400
The one is that, forgive me for
invoking authority, but even as

357
00:23:28,040 --> 00:23:32,960
as as pertinent an authority in
this context, as Tom Nagle says,

358
00:23:32,960 --> 00:23:37,640
an affective zombie is an
impossibility that that any

359
00:23:37,720 --> 00:23:45,520
system that has the the
functional mechanisms that

360
00:23:45,520 --> 00:23:50,720
generate affect, because as I
said, for me affect and feeling

361
00:23:50,720 --> 00:23:54,360
are the same thing.
Happily, Nagle agrees.

362
00:23:54,680 --> 00:23:57,560
You know that that if you have
the functional mechanisms that

363
00:23:57,560 --> 00:24:02,760
generate feeling, then you can't
have those without feeling.

364
00:24:03,040 --> 00:24:06,880
You know, it's just like it's a,
it's a, it's a, it's a self

365
00:24:06,880 --> 00:24:10,480
contradictory argument.
I can, I know where traumas is

366
00:24:10,480 --> 00:24:15,600
coming from when he talks about
zombies, but affective zombies,

367
00:24:15,960 --> 00:24:17,640
I think it's not quite the same
thing.

368
00:24:17,800 --> 00:24:20,800
You, you, you can't say that a
thing that has that functional

369
00:24:21,000 --> 00:24:24,800
architecture and displays all
the behaviours that go with

370
00:24:24,800 --> 00:24:27,640
affect.
You can't say that it's that

371
00:24:27,640 --> 00:24:31,680
it's a zombie because affect is
perforce felt.

372
00:24:31,800 --> 00:24:34,360
That's the what the what we
that's the the function we're

373
00:24:34,360 --> 00:24:38,000
talking about here is the
function that generates feeling.

374
00:24:38,080 --> 00:24:41,040
If you have that function, it
has to, it has to come along

375
00:24:41,040 --> 00:24:45,040
with feeling.
And so to make my second point,

376
00:24:45,040 --> 00:24:49,560
which as I say, may be the same
point, I don't see how you can

377
00:24:49,560 --> 00:24:53,320
mimic, if you have, it's a, it's
a question.

378
00:24:53,320 --> 00:24:59,200
If you instantiate that
architecture that it's

379
00:24:59,200 --> 00:25:04,080
reasonable to believe is the
mechanistic basis for whereby

380
00:25:04,080 --> 00:25:09,320
feelings are generated, then
the, the having such a mechanism

381
00:25:09,760 --> 00:25:14,640
is not mimicking what we have.
It is instantiating what we

382
00:25:14,640 --> 00:25:18,120
have.
And so, you know, I, I, I, I

383
00:25:18,120 --> 00:25:20,640
would quit.
And it all boils down again to

384
00:25:20,640 --> 00:25:24,160
what we said at the very
beginning that that conscious

385
00:25:24,160 --> 00:25:28,760
states are felt.
And so, you know, the, if you're

386
00:25:28,760 --> 00:25:33,320
generating an affect, you're
generating something the measure

387
00:25:33,320 --> 00:25:37,400
of which is from the, from the
viewpoint of the system, that is

388
00:25:37,400 --> 00:25:41,920
that, that mechanism feels like
something I, I, I hope I'm

389
00:25:41,920 --> 00:25:45,320
making myself clear.
Cole, anything about that you'd

390
00:25:45,320 --> 00:25:53,600
like to respond to or Adam?
Yes, just to pick up and

391
00:25:54,600 --> 00:25:58,240
reinforce or reiterate a couple
of key points.

392
00:25:59,640 --> 00:26:04,960
So the first is this
acknowledgement that we are

393
00:26:04,960 --> 00:26:12,240
using homology as the basis of
the evidence that we assimilate

394
00:26:12,520 --> 00:26:16,040
when making a decision about
whether you or some artefact is

395
00:26:16,080 --> 00:26:19,160
is conscious.
Mark articulated that in terms

396
00:26:19,160 --> 00:26:21,800
of the scientific process, he
deferred to Popper.

397
00:26:22,080 --> 00:26:25,640
Not everybody would, but he did.
And that's perfectly fine.

398
00:26:26,160 --> 00:26:30,480
And that's exactly what I meant,
that consciousness is something

399
00:26:30,480 --> 00:26:33,560
you infer about something.
It's it's an act of measurement.

400
00:26:33,560 --> 00:26:37,560
It's an observation that entails
a degree of inference.

401
00:26:37,560 --> 00:26:41,560
And because that means there has
to be evidence for that

402
00:26:41,560 --> 00:26:43,280
inference.
And I think this is going to be

403
00:26:43,280 --> 00:26:45,400
practically relevant when we
come to machine consciousness

404
00:26:45,400 --> 00:26:47,840
because you're going to, you
know, people like Joshua back

405
00:26:47,840 --> 00:26:52,560
are asking, you know, what kind
of evidence based approaches

406
00:26:52,560 --> 00:26:55,560
should we take to this artefact
to say whether it is conscious

407
00:26:55,560 --> 00:26:58,320
or not.
So this is a really important

408
00:26:58,320 --> 00:27:00,040
question.
And I think Mark has very

409
00:27:00,040 --> 00:27:04,520
elegantly just sort of framed
that as the as the key issue.

410
00:27:05,000 --> 00:27:08,560
And he, I repeat, articulated in
terms of preparian scientific

411
00:27:08,760 --> 00:27:12,000
inference or hypothesis testing.
And that's exactly what I meant

412
00:27:13,840 --> 00:27:18,440
in terms of inferring something
is conscious.

413
00:27:19,040 --> 00:27:23,440
And then what he went on to say
was, well, OK, we can certainly

414
00:27:23,440 --> 00:27:26,720
use structural and anatomical
homology as one source of

415
00:27:26,720 --> 00:27:29,640
evidence.
So if I were able to breach your

416
00:27:29,640 --> 00:27:33,000
mark of blanket and look inside,
say unfortunately you had died

417
00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:36,440
and I was able to dissect you
and I can look at the structure

418
00:27:36,440 --> 00:27:39,480
of your brain and I can
certainly find those source of

419
00:27:39,680 --> 00:27:43,600
sources of ascending classical
neuromodulatory systems, you

420
00:27:43,600 --> 00:27:47,880
know, around the base of your
brain that are those that

421
00:27:47,880 --> 00:27:52,880
machinery, that part of your
anatomy that is necessary to

422
00:27:52,880 --> 00:27:57,640
support feeling.
And I could infer even though

423
00:27:57,640 --> 00:28:00,000
you are no longer conscious
because you're dead, because

424
00:28:00,000 --> 00:28:02,360
I've broken your mark off
blanket by literally slicing

425
00:28:02,360 --> 00:28:06,200
into your brain, then I could
infer that you were conscious

426
00:28:07,160 --> 00:28:09,040
simply on that structural
homology.

427
00:28:10,000 --> 00:28:11,640
Could I apply that to a zebra
fish?

428
00:28:11,800 --> 00:28:14,760
Well, to a certain extent we can
because we can actually image

429
00:28:14,760 --> 00:28:18,120
the neuronal circuitry at least
and and look at the common

430
00:28:18,120 --> 00:28:20,520
homologies and you may argue
from the point of origin of

431
00:28:20,520 --> 00:28:24,240
life, there are lots of
different structural chemical

432
00:28:27,080 --> 00:28:30,440
homologies that might, you know,
one might appeal to as sources

433
00:28:30,440 --> 00:28:32,280
of evidence to make an
inference.

434
00:28:32,600 --> 00:28:34,640
A best guess is this thing
conscious or not?

435
00:28:35,760 --> 00:28:37,760
And of course, what you're
saying is if it's sufficiently

436
00:28:37,760 --> 00:28:43,360
like me, it's conscious and the
more that homology is broken and

437
00:28:43,360 --> 00:28:47,560
the further you wander away from
zebra fish down to viruses, the,

438
00:28:47,640 --> 00:28:50,080
the, the less you can rely upon
that homology.

439
00:28:50,800 --> 00:28:53,080
And then what Mark said.
OK, well, are there other

440
00:28:53,080 --> 00:28:55,440
criteria?
Because it's, if I do, if I

441
00:28:55,440 --> 00:28:59,360
dissect my personal computer, I
am not going to find these

442
00:28:59,360 --> 00:29:01,200
things.
It just doesn't have the right

443
00:29:01,200 --> 00:29:02,240
anatomy.
It doesn't have the right

444
00:29:02,280 --> 00:29:05,760
architecture, which may tell you
that my PC will never be

445
00:29:05,760 --> 00:29:08,600
conscious, but let's just pursue
the argument.

446
00:29:08,720 --> 00:29:10,920
But there may be some other
homology there which was a

447
00:29:10,920 --> 00:29:14,520
functional 1.
And I think that's, you know, is

448
00:29:14,520 --> 00:29:18,920
that true?
Can you ever have a divorce

449
00:29:18,920 --> 00:29:20,760
between the anatomy and the
function?

450
00:29:21,040 --> 00:29:24,040
Can you have a divorce between
the structure and the function?

451
00:29:24,240 --> 00:29:27,080
The the, the OR the dynamics on
the structure?

452
00:29:28,360 --> 00:29:30,320
I would actually argue you
can't.

453
00:29:31,280 --> 00:29:33,360
So I don't think this is a
disagreement, but it's a

454
00:29:33,360 --> 00:29:36,600
particularly strong position,
which I'm not, let us say I'm

455
00:29:36,600 --> 00:29:40,400
not necessarily committed to,
but I would certainly argue, say

456
00:29:40,400 --> 00:29:44,720
if I was Ross Ashby and or
indeed Carl Friston, as you

457
00:29:44,720 --> 00:29:48,440
know, the author of the energy
principle, I would argue that

458
00:29:48,440 --> 00:29:53,800
the anatomy is the substrate
that embodies or entails the

459
00:29:53,800 --> 00:29:56,160
function.
So this is the good regulator

460
00:29:56,160 --> 00:29:59,520
theorem.
It's also appears again and

461
00:29:59,520 --> 00:30:02,160
again in the context of the free
energy principle, that we

462
00:30:02,160 --> 00:30:06,600
install the cause effect
structure of our lived world

463
00:30:08,160 --> 00:30:12,960
into our anatomy so that it has
a hierarchy, so that that

464
00:30:12,960 --> 00:30:16,360
reflects, for example, the scale
invariance and the hierarchical

465
00:30:16,360 --> 00:30:19,840
composition of things that
generate our sensorium.

466
00:30:20,920 --> 00:30:25,960
It has a separation of temporal
scales, It has dynamics, it has

467
00:30:26,440 --> 00:30:29,040
and so on and so forth.
And there are lots of, if you

468
00:30:29,040 --> 00:30:37,760
like, aspects of the anatomy
that are tie you down to a

469
00:30:37,760 --> 00:30:40,800
particular Physiology, that tie
you down to a particular

470
00:30:40,800 --> 00:30:43,680
functionality.
And in many respects, most of

471
00:30:43,680 --> 00:30:47,520
the theories that attend the
free energy principle are about

472
00:30:47,520 --> 00:30:49,360
that.
So is my brain a predictive

473
00:30:49,360 --> 00:30:53,160
coding machine?
You know, does it work like a

474
00:30:53,160 --> 00:30:56,160
camera filter?
Or is it oblique propagation

475
00:30:56,160 --> 00:30:58,760
machine?
Does it work like message

476
00:30:58,760 --> 00:31:01,680
passing on a factograph?
Both have quite plausible

477
00:31:02,680 --> 00:31:07,720
hypotheses that specify a
particular anatomy, a particular

478
00:31:07,720 --> 00:31:09,760
connectivity, a particular
structure.

479
00:31:10,160 --> 00:31:15,400
So from that point of view, what
we are saying then is if we are

480
00:31:15,400 --> 00:31:19,720
looking at homologies and both
the functional and anatomy, both

481
00:31:19,720 --> 00:31:23,440
are basically two sides of the
same coin, two sides of the same

482
00:31:23,440 --> 00:31:29,080
coin, then the inference that
something is conscious is only

483
00:31:29,080 --> 00:31:32,920
by homology.
Which just means that you can

484
00:31:32,920 --> 00:31:36,520
only be conscious if you're
sufficiently like me, which

485
00:31:36,520 --> 00:31:41,720
means you will not be able to
recognize consciousness in any

486
00:31:41,720 --> 00:31:45,400
other kind of artifact or any
other space-time scale.

487
00:31:46,000 --> 00:31:48,280
I think that's important from a
machine consciousness point of

488
00:31:48,280 --> 00:31:52,880
view because you cannot now make
consciousness in a machine that

489
00:31:52,880 --> 00:31:56,400
does not look like me.
So now what you're saying is you

490
00:31:56,400 --> 00:32:01,720
have to turn to mortal
computation, substrate dependent

491
00:32:01,720 --> 00:32:06,240
computation, before you can
build an artifact that's going

492
00:32:06,240 --> 00:32:10,960
to pass the Turing test, Turing
test of of consciousness,

493
00:32:11,240 --> 00:32:13,440
because it has to have that
homology.

494
00:32:13,440 --> 00:32:16,880
It has to have the same anatomy,
the same computational anatomy,

495
00:32:16,880 --> 00:32:21,760
the same functional anatomy, the
functional architecture as me,

496
00:32:21,760 --> 00:32:23,720
because that's the only source
of evidence.

497
00:32:23,720 --> 00:32:25,080
Why is it the only source of
evidence?

498
00:32:25,160 --> 00:32:27,240
Because it's only me that has
feelings.

499
00:32:27,560 --> 00:32:30,440
So yeah, if this thing has
feelings, it has to be like me.

500
00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:35,800
And I think that's important,
you know, to say out loud when

501
00:32:35,800 --> 00:32:38,440
it comes to questions about
consciousness.

502
00:32:38,640 --> 00:32:41,440
That tells you two things.
That machine consciousness is

503
00:32:41,440 --> 00:32:49,120
only going to be emergent when
it's evinced in transaction with

504
00:32:49,200 --> 00:32:51,880
other things that are conscious,
namely people.

505
00:32:52,520 --> 00:32:56,000
And it's going to have to have
some mortal aspect to it and

506
00:32:56,000 --> 00:32:58,680
possibly have the morphic
structural aspect to it as well.

507
00:32:59,400 --> 00:33:02,440
But certainly the transactional
aspect, the relational, the

508
00:33:02,440 --> 00:33:05,440
observational aspect is going to
is, is is quite important.

509
00:33:05,680 --> 00:33:08,120
So you're not going to find
consciousness on the edge.

510
00:33:08,680 --> 00:33:10,600
You're not going to find it in
supercomputers.

511
00:33:11,080 --> 00:33:14,360
You're not going to find it.
You could even argue on von

512
00:33:14,360 --> 00:33:20,320
Neumann architectures simply for
just extending and formalizing

513
00:33:20,320 --> 00:33:25,080
the the the the the truisms that
Mark was just articulating,

514
00:33:25,080 --> 00:33:28,280
which all rest upon homology.
Is this thing like me?

515
00:33:30,520 --> 00:33:35,320
So I want to come in there.
First of all, I want to say

516
00:33:35,640 --> 00:33:40,640
something about Papa.
It's not an endorsement of Papa

517
00:33:40,800 --> 00:33:45,920
that I invoke him here.
The reason I do is because of

518
00:33:45,920 --> 00:33:50,560
the conservative, you know,
dispositions of of the

519
00:33:50,560 --> 00:33:55,840
scientists who going to be most
sceptical as as I've

520
00:33:55,840 --> 00:33:59,320
encountered, even when it comes
to trying to persuade some of my

521
00:33:59,320 --> 00:34:02,480
colleagues about vertebrate
consciousness being ubiquitous.

522
00:34:02,920 --> 00:34:06,600
So I'm saying, well, let's use
the most conservative rules and,

523
00:34:06,600 --> 00:34:09,679
and laws, principles, customs,
you know, that we use in

524
00:34:09,679 --> 00:34:11,960
science.
Just about every natural

525
00:34:11,960 --> 00:34:17,199
scientist, you know, functions
by those rule, those poparian

526
00:34:17,199 --> 00:34:21,080
sort of criteria in, in, in
terms of, you know, what your

527
00:34:21,080 --> 00:34:24,040
peers are going to expect you to
do if they're going to accept

528
00:34:24,040 --> 00:34:26,080
the results that you want to
publish.

529
00:34:26,400 --> 00:34:31,040
So I, I just, I have nothing
against Popper particularly, but

530
00:34:31,040 --> 00:34:34,719
I don't want to be seen to be
endorsing Popper as the one and

531
00:34:34,719 --> 00:34:39,320
only voice that we should be
guided by in the philosophy of

532
00:34:39,320 --> 00:34:41,560
science.
It's just that it he, he does

533
00:34:41,560 --> 00:34:47,400
have such hegemonic control over
over over contemporary science.

534
00:34:47,400 --> 00:34:49,600
And so I'm saying, well, if
we're going to follow those

535
00:34:49,600 --> 00:34:51,560
rules, then we must follow them
fairly.

536
00:34:51,560 --> 00:34:55,280
We must, we must say, OK, well
then let's apply them, you know,

537
00:34:55,320 --> 00:34:59,080
beyond it's, it's a way of
trying to get around prejudice

538
00:34:59,080 --> 00:35:02,920
basically in a word.
But now back to the more

539
00:35:02,920 --> 00:35:06,960
substantive issues that that
Carl has just articulated, I

540
00:35:06,960 --> 00:35:10,840
think, and the reason I'm going
to say what I'm going to say is

541
00:35:10,840 --> 00:35:14,720
that there's a lot of potential
slippage in the way that what

542
00:35:14,720 --> 00:35:16,720
Carl has just said will be
heard.

543
00:35:17,440 --> 00:35:20,920
So people will people with
certain positions will say, you

544
00:35:20,920 --> 00:35:23,080
see, Carl Friston agrees with
me.

545
00:35:23,200 --> 00:35:25,640
And people with a completely
different position will say, you

546
00:35:25,640 --> 00:35:27,440
see, Carl Friston agrees with
me.

547
00:35:27,600 --> 00:35:31,560
So because they will hear what
he's saying in their own ways.

548
00:35:31,960 --> 00:35:34,960
So, so I want to just go slowly
here.

549
00:35:36,360 --> 00:35:42,000
The at the one extreme, Carl
will have been heard now to have

550
00:35:42,080 --> 00:35:46,920
articulated a kind of biological
naturalist position, saying that

551
00:35:47,400 --> 00:35:52,360
unless you have the same anatomy
as me, or at least the same

552
00:35:52,360 --> 00:35:58,080
essential your your anatomy has
has recognizably homologous

553
00:36:01,400 --> 00:36:06,760
structure, then I don't think
it's possible that it can have

554
00:36:06,760 --> 00:36:11,560
the same functionality.
Some people will hear what he

555
00:36:11,560 --> 00:36:17,240
said as that as a biological
naturalist, you know, the

556
00:36:17,240 --> 00:36:20,640
substrate, this business is not
substrate independent.

557
00:36:21,200 --> 00:36:28,000
And others would like me will
hear him as saying by anatomy he

558
00:36:28,000 --> 00:36:31,800
means architecture.
And he in fact used the word,

559
00:36:33,880 --> 00:36:38,760
you know, in that way.
To my ear, he was saying an

560
00:36:38,760 --> 00:36:43,520
anatomy in the sense of it's,
it's not just a functionalism in

561
00:36:43,520 --> 00:36:47,280
terms of, it's what it does.
It doesn't matter on what

562
00:36:47,280 --> 00:36:50,320
substrate it does it.
So if the outcome is the same,

563
00:36:50,480 --> 00:36:54,800
you know, then it is the same.
I, I, I don't think that if the

564
00:36:54,800 --> 00:36:58,200
outcome is the same in regard to
a good many functions.

565
00:36:58,640 --> 00:37:02,400
And I, I want us to speak here
in broad terms because I don't

566
00:37:02,400 --> 00:37:05,320
want there to be exceptionalism
when it comes to consciousness.

567
00:37:05,720 --> 00:37:09,120
You know, that that's another
one of the prejudices that I'm

568
00:37:09,120 --> 00:37:14,120
trying to prevent it as far as
is possible.

569
00:37:14,320 --> 00:37:16,240
Consciousness is just part of
nature.

570
00:37:16,720 --> 00:37:21,560
It's, it's, it's something that
must have mechanistic causes

571
00:37:22,800 --> 00:37:25,680
like everything else.
And it must be possible for us

572
00:37:25,680 --> 00:37:28,560
to eventually discern what that
mechanism is.

573
00:37:29,120 --> 00:37:32,440
And therefore it must be
possible to be able to create

574
00:37:32,800 --> 00:37:35,920
that mechanism.
If it's not, then conscious is

575
00:37:35,920 --> 00:37:38,760
something utterly special,
completely different from the

576
00:37:38,760 --> 00:37:44,600
whole of the rest of nature.
So I'm saying when we speak

577
00:37:44,600 --> 00:37:48,600
about outcomes, not to do with
consciousness, but outcomes, you

578
00:37:48,600 --> 00:37:53,720
know, you could say, well, you
know, because you can that

579
00:37:54,160 --> 00:37:59,160
travel to the same destination
by aeroplane or by Oxcott.

580
00:37:59,360 --> 00:38:02,000
You know, therefore Oxcott and
aeroplanes are the same thing.

581
00:38:02,000 --> 00:38:04,000
And that's ridiculous.
They're not, they're completely

582
00:38:04,000 --> 00:38:06,000
different things.
They, they have the same outcome

583
00:38:06,000 --> 00:38:10,600
of getting you to Paris, but the
one takes you 10 years to get

584
00:38:10,600 --> 00:38:14,280
there, another, you know, 10
hours, you know, because they're

585
00:38:14,280 --> 00:38:16,840
completely different things.
It's not just a matter of the,

586
00:38:16,880 --> 00:38:24,120
of the, of the destination.
If the, so, you know, coming to

587
00:38:24,120 --> 00:38:29,360
biology, you know, there, there,
there are prostheses which have

588
00:38:29,560 --> 00:38:33,840
the same functional
architecture, which are doing

589
00:38:33,840 --> 00:38:36,400
the same thing.
Not in the sense that I was just

590
00:38:36,560 --> 00:38:41,600
speaking now in terms of, you
know, what the output is, it is

591
00:38:41,640 --> 00:38:47,560
what they're actually doing, you
know, so the, when you, when

592
00:38:47,560 --> 00:38:49,880
you're having open heart
surgery, you know, there's a,

593
00:38:50,680 --> 00:38:54,680
there's a, an artificial machine
that keeps your blood

594
00:38:54,680 --> 00:38:58,000
circulating, but it's a
completely different substrate.

595
00:38:58,240 --> 00:39:02,080
It's not made of muscle.
You know, it's, it's, it's, it's

596
00:39:02,280 --> 00:39:07,120
a, it's a, it's a, a, a, a
machine in the colloquial sense

597
00:39:07,120 --> 00:39:09,840
of the word, you know, as
opposed to a biological

598
00:39:10,480 --> 00:39:12,600
substrate.
It's a, it's a, it's a

599
00:39:12,600 --> 00:39:16,240
mechanical artificial substrate.
But it does do the same thing.

600
00:39:16,840 --> 00:39:21,280
So I think that we're looking at
what Carl's talking about is a

601
00:39:21,280 --> 00:39:23,720
functional, A functional
architecture.

602
00:39:23,720 --> 00:39:26,720
So it's not just the functional
output, it's the functional

603
00:39:26,720 --> 00:39:28,920
architecture.
But I think that's what he's

604
00:39:28,920 --> 00:39:31,280
saying.
That has to be homologous.

605
00:39:32,200 --> 00:39:36,040
It it can't just be it has it,
it has the same behavioral

606
00:39:36,040 --> 00:39:38,800
output.
It it has to be doing the same

607
00:39:38,800 --> 00:39:40,960
thing.
But that doesn't mean it has to

608
00:39:40,960 --> 00:39:44,040
be a biological creature.
And I found it.

609
00:39:44,280 --> 00:39:46,360
I don't know.
Carl, are you a commentator on

610
00:39:46,360 --> 00:39:48,960
the Neil's paper in BBS?
The, the Yep.

611
00:39:49,040 --> 00:39:53,880
So our, our close colleague, I
mean, are close in in every

612
00:39:53,880 --> 00:39:56,520
sense of the word, but most
importantly for present

613
00:39:56,520 --> 00:40:01,240
purposes, he, he shares the same
theoretical assumptions for the

614
00:40:01,240 --> 00:40:06,440
most part as as Carl and I do.
And yet he's he's recently,

615
00:40:06,960 --> 00:40:08,600
well, this paper hasn't come out
yet.

616
00:40:09,440 --> 00:40:12,960
But it's, it's doing the rounds
because it's not in the process

617
00:40:12,960 --> 00:40:15,560
of open peer review.
So I think it's, you know, it's

618
00:40:15,560 --> 00:40:20,400
OK to comment on it.
It's, he argues A biological

619
00:40:20,400 --> 00:40:23,800
naturalist position when it
comes to consciousness.

620
00:40:24,200 --> 00:40:27,600
And I was rather surprised, but
that's what he did.

621
00:40:28,280 --> 00:40:31,720
He, he argues explicitly argues
a biological naturalist

622
00:40:31,720 --> 00:40:35,040
position.
But then when you actually drill

623
00:40:35,040 --> 00:40:39,080
down into the article, he ends
up saying, you know, because you

624
00:40:39,080 --> 00:40:43,840
know, it has to have this
functional architecture, it has

625
00:40:43,840 --> 00:40:47,080
to be actually trying to
maintain the life of the system.

626
00:40:48,000 --> 00:40:51,160
You know, consciousness is, is,
is, is.

627
00:40:51,800 --> 00:40:53,480
And I agree with them.
You know, in terms of

628
00:40:53,480 --> 00:40:55,720
consciousness, it's the most
basic form, which is just

629
00:40:55,720 --> 00:40:57,320
feeling.
It's got everything to do with

630
00:40:57,320 --> 00:40:59,240
homeostasis.
It's got everything to do.

631
00:41:00,040 --> 00:41:02,640
So therefore with the free
energy principle and active

632
00:41:02,640 --> 00:41:05,240
inference and all of that.
But you know, in the service of

633
00:41:05,240 --> 00:41:07,880
homeostasis and in the service
of things which are

634
00:41:07,880 --> 00:41:12,600
fundamentally biological or the,
the, the Organism giving a damn

635
00:41:13,040 --> 00:41:16,200
to, to quote Hagelin's and a
famous and a computers don't

636
00:41:16,200 --> 00:41:18,600
give a damn.
You know, the, the, the, if the,

637
00:41:18,880 --> 00:41:21,840
if the thing doesn't give a
damn, then it then it, you know,

638
00:41:21,880 --> 00:41:26,480
it, it about its own existence.
And if it isn't seeking to

639
00:41:26,640 --> 00:41:30,600
maintain its own existence and,
and deploying affect in the

640
00:41:30,600 --> 00:41:36,880
service of this, this subjective
goal, etcetera, this existential

641
00:41:36,880 --> 00:41:40,040
goal, you know, then it says,
says Anil.

642
00:41:40,040 --> 00:41:41,920
I don't see how it can be
conscious.

643
00:41:42,400 --> 00:41:47,000
But then he goes on to say, but
I grant you that they could be a

644
00:41:47,000 --> 00:41:53,680
robot which has, you know, non
carbon based instantiation of

645
00:41:53,680 --> 00:41:57,840
this same functionality.
And he says then it would have

646
00:41:58,120 --> 00:42:02,080
artificial consciousness, real
artificial consciousness, he

647
00:42:02,080 --> 00:42:04,240
calls it.
So this is the slippage that I'm

648
00:42:04,240 --> 00:42:06,360
talking about.
It sounds like biological

649
00:42:06,360 --> 00:42:10,000
naturalism and and Neil actually
claims to be a biological

650
00:42:10,000 --> 00:42:12,960
naturalist, but he ends up
saying something which is

651
00:42:13,320 --> 00:42:17,960
functionalist in the sense of
functional architecture doing

652
00:42:17,960 --> 00:42:22,760
something for the system of this
kind.

653
00:42:24,360 --> 00:42:27,960
I don't it doesn't have to be an
aneel basically concedes the

654
00:42:27,960 --> 00:42:30,960
point.
It doesn't have to be made of

655
00:42:31,360 --> 00:42:37,800
neurons and muscle and and
vessel and so on.

656
00:42:38,040 --> 00:42:42,240
So that maybe we are beginning
to enter into an area of

657
00:42:42,240 --> 00:42:43,640
disagreement.
I don't think so.

658
00:42:43,640 --> 00:42:47,880
I'm more worried about how Cole
might be misheard if I if if

659
00:42:47,880 --> 00:42:51,640
I've interpreted him correctly.
I don't think, Cole, you're a

660
00:42:51,640 --> 00:42:55,040
biological naturalist.
Good.

661
00:42:55,040 --> 00:42:58,720
Thank you.
No, you're absolutely right.

662
00:42:59,480 --> 00:43:03,400
Is it interesting you pick up on
the sort of the architect and

663
00:43:03,400 --> 00:43:09,800
I've certainly in the past
decade, 3 decades ago when we

664
00:43:09,800 --> 00:43:13,280
were doing a lot of brain
scanning, the inception of

665
00:43:13,320 --> 00:43:16,520
posture and emission tomography
and subsequently fMRI, we're in

666
00:43:16,520 --> 00:43:21,040
a position for the first time to
image the anatomy of the brain

667
00:43:21,040 --> 00:43:23,000
in function.
And we'll use the term

668
00:43:23,000 --> 00:43:26,880
functional anatomy as distinct
from structural anatomy or the

669
00:43:26,880 --> 00:43:30,240
kind of anatomy that anatomist
did so from.

670
00:43:30,240 --> 00:43:33,400
For decades I've used the word
functional anatomy, but I've now

671
00:43:33,400 --> 00:43:38,720
deliberately changed it because
that's too, what did you call

672
00:43:38,760 --> 00:43:42,200
it, biological, Whatever,
whatever it it's too

673
00:43:42,200 --> 00:43:44,440
constrained.
Yeah, what what what people are

674
00:43:44,440 --> 00:43:46,120
talking about are functional
architectures.

675
00:43:46,840 --> 00:43:48,800
That's what I meant by dynamics
on structure.

676
00:43:49,680 --> 00:43:52,680
So you're absolutely right.
And it doesn't have to be carbon

677
00:43:52,680 --> 00:43:56,800
based and it certainly doesn't
have to be, doesn't have to be,

678
00:43:57,040 --> 00:43:59,680
for example.
And I think this is sort of

679
00:43:59,680 --> 00:44:02,400
practically important because
you will find a community out

680
00:44:02,400 --> 00:44:06,000
there who are committed to a
particular kind of neuromorphic

681
00:44:07,240 --> 00:44:10,680
way forward in terms of
artificial consciousness based

682
00:44:10,680 --> 00:44:13,920
upon spiking neural networks,
SSNS, SNS.

683
00:44:14,960 --> 00:44:18,600
So you know, that is really
going, you know, a particular

684
00:44:18,600 --> 00:44:22,840
commitment to a biomedic
neuromorphic kind of computation

685
00:44:22,840 --> 00:44:27,560
where they're actually emulating
the spiked by spike Physiology

686
00:44:27,560 --> 00:44:30,840
of synaptic transmission.
I don't think that is what is

687
00:44:30,840 --> 00:44:35,680
implied by certainly the self
evidence implied by things like

688
00:44:35,680 --> 00:44:40,160
the free energy principle.
What is implied is the anatomy

689
00:44:40,160 --> 00:44:43,440
of the cause effect structure
being installed in the message

690
00:44:43,440 --> 00:44:47,000
passing on the dynamics in your
computer, whether your computer

691
00:44:47,000 --> 00:44:49,320
is your brain or your personal
computer.

692
00:44:49,920 --> 00:44:52,640
That it is that architecture
that that absolutely I was

693
00:44:52,640 --> 00:44:56,280
talking about and doesn't need
to be cast at the scale of

694
00:44:56,280 --> 00:44:58,280
spikes.
It could be population dynamics,

695
00:44:58,280 --> 00:45:01,560
and indeed you could argue as a
physicist, all physics,

696
00:45:01,560 --> 00:45:04,560
including the physics of
sentience and the physics of

697
00:45:04,560 --> 00:45:09,360
consciousness is just a a
statement of probabilistic

698
00:45:09,360 --> 00:45:12,920
dynamics.
It you know, So you don't need

699
00:45:12,920 --> 00:45:18,000
to actually simulate the every
element of an ensemble over

700
00:45:18,000 --> 00:45:19,440
which you have a probability
distribution.

701
00:45:19,440 --> 00:45:24,320
You just need to simulate the
functional architectures that

702
00:45:24,800 --> 00:45:27,520
describe the density dynamics,
the probability density

703
00:45:27,520 --> 00:45:29,920
dynamics.
And I put it like that because

704
00:45:30,040 --> 00:45:33,600
you can always reduce any
functional architecture to a

705
00:45:33,640 --> 00:45:36,560
graphical model.
And it's just the connectivity

706
00:45:36,560 --> 00:45:39,280
and the architecture of that
graphical model that I was

707
00:45:39,280 --> 00:45:43,600
implying when, you know, when I
talked about sort of functional

708
00:45:43,600 --> 00:45:45,920
anatomy.
One final point is to again to

709
00:45:45,920 --> 00:45:56,160
sort of reiterate Mark's point.
Well, perhaps we'll come back to

710
00:45:56,160 --> 00:46:00,360
this, but you know, I was trying
to sort of pick up on a Neil's

711
00:46:01,280 --> 00:46:05,280
arguments and amplify them in a
way that I thought he would be

712
00:46:05,280 --> 00:46:08,760
pleased with.
And I, I didn't spot the

713
00:46:08,760 --> 00:46:12,440
biological aspect too much, but
I, what I did spot was the

714
00:46:12,440 --> 00:46:16,320
commitment to in memory
processing and mortal

715
00:46:16,320 --> 00:46:18,720
computation.
So I'm not saying the substrate

716
00:46:18,720 --> 00:46:21,440
has to be carbon based.
And what I'm saying is that the,

717
00:46:21,920 --> 00:46:25,200
the, the stuff in and of itself
has to do the computation.

718
00:46:26,360 --> 00:46:30,360
And that becomes very relevant
when we're talking about von

719
00:46:30,360 --> 00:46:34,920
Neumann architectures and in
memory processing, such as say

720
00:46:34,920 --> 00:46:37,760
with remembrances or photonics.
So I'm going to put that on the

721
00:46:37,760 --> 00:46:38,680
side.
I think that's something we

722
00:46:38,680 --> 00:46:41,520
might have to come back to,
because when I talk about mortal

723
00:46:41,520 --> 00:46:45,520
computation and when people like
Alex and Jeff Hinton talk about

724
00:46:45,880 --> 00:46:51,800
mortal computation, we're not
talking about biological neural

725
00:46:51,800 --> 00:46:54,240
networks.
We are talking about the

726
00:46:54,240 --> 00:46:59,680
functional architectures that
render the substrate locally

727
00:46:59,680 --> 00:47:03,040
doing the computation.
And it could be, I repeat say,

728
00:47:03,120 --> 00:47:06,240
saying memristors.
And there's another take, which

729
00:47:06,240 --> 00:47:09,440
is Alex's take on mortal
computation, which resonates

730
00:47:09,440 --> 00:47:14,440
beautifully with what Mark was
just saying that OK, what is

731
00:47:14,440 --> 00:47:16,560
mortal computation?
You could say it is

732
00:47:16,560 --> 00:47:19,120
intelligence.
And if you've got affect or

733
00:47:19,120 --> 00:47:22,880
feeling under the hood during
the immortal computation, then

734
00:47:22,880 --> 00:47:27,200
you have consciousness.
What's the, what will be

735
00:47:27,200 --> 00:47:30,680
immortal computation?
Well, anything that can be run

736
00:47:30,680 --> 00:47:34,000
by software that is immortal.
So software that can be run on

737
00:47:34,000 --> 00:47:39,080
any machine is immortal.
But if the software is a thing

738
00:47:40,000 --> 00:47:47,320
that is the is conscious, then
it has no need to worry about

739
00:47:47,320 --> 00:47:50,440
persisting, surviving,
responding to drives or needs

740
00:47:50,720 --> 00:47:53,560
because it's immortal.
So I expect it's a really

741
00:47:53,560 --> 00:47:56,640
interesting point.
The the, the, the, the

742
00:47:56,680 --> 00:48:00,240
existential imperatives that
underwrites self organization of

743
00:48:00,240 --> 00:48:04,640
the kind that induce the notion
of drives and needs and effects

744
00:48:04,840 --> 00:48:08,600
and feelings can only be an
attribute to something that can

745
00:48:08,600 --> 00:48:13,160
die because it's it's own
purpose is to prolong the period

746
00:48:13,160 --> 00:48:16,320
between its introduction into
the world and the point that it

747
00:48:16,320 --> 00:48:19,120
departs.
So it has to be mortal in this,

748
00:48:19,120 --> 00:48:21,160
in this sort of, you know,
common sensical sense.

749
00:48:23,840 --> 00:48:27,400
Guys, before let us come back to
that, I made a note about it

750
00:48:27,400 --> 00:48:29,920
just so that we don't
accidentally forget, forget to

751
00:48:29,920 --> 00:48:32,680
answer the question call
perhaps.

752
00:48:32,720 --> 00:48:35,280
Let's continue with you for now.
Is it possible?

753
00:48:35,960 --> 00:48:37,640
With that being said, I tried to
preface this with the

754
00:48:37,640 --> 00:48:41,360
philosophical conversation first
about consciousness, and there's

755
00:48:41,360 --> 00:48:44,200
something else I'd like to touch
on that still hasn't been asked.

756
00:48:44,200 --> 00:48:46,560
But let let's start with the
main topic at hand.

757
00:48:46,600 --> 00:48:50,720
Is it possible then to engineer
artificial consciousness?

758
00:48:53,200 --> 00:48:56,840
Yeah, I see no reason why not.
You just need to identify the

759
00:48:56,840 --> 00:49:01,920
right functional anatomy.
And as you say, it is going

760
00:49:01,920 --> 00:49:06,440
beyond creating agents, but I
think you'd have to have agency

761
00:49:06,440 --> 00:49:11,880
as part of your, your
intelligent artefact and then

762
00:49:11,880 --> 00:49:16,240
you would need to equip it with
affect and the the machinery

763
00:49:16,240 --> 00:49:21,760
necessary to support feelings.
How would you do that?

764
00:49:22,600 --> 00:49:27,360
Well, we've just touched on on
sort of two, well three issues.

765
00:49:28,480 --> 00:49:35,000
First of all, you would I think
have to commit to to mortal

766
00:49:35,000 --> 00:49:37,320
computation.
I don't think he can do this in

767
00:49:37,320 --> 00:49:41,720
a von Neumann architecture.
And we can talk about why in a

768
00:49:41,720 --> 00:49:45,120
second.
If we did, if we did, we could

769
00:49:45,120 --> 00:49:49,040
certainly simulate consciousness
in a, in a sort of layman sense

770
00:49:49,040 --> 00:49:53,120
on a von Neumann architecture.
And this would be very much akin

771
00:49:53,320 --> 00:49:56,920
to Mark's example of a heart
lung machine keeping a patient

772
00:49:56,920 --> 00:50:01,520
alive during heart surgery.
So it's perfectly possible to

773
00:50:01,520 --> 00:50:05,840
simulate the kind of belief
updating and message passing and

774
00:50:05,840 --> 00:50:10,400
potentially simulate the affect
read in this instance as

775
00:50:10,760 --> 00:50:15,720
investing certain certain
messages or certain belief

776
00:50:15,720 --> 00:50:19,200
structures with a confidence or
a precision or igniting them in

777
00:50:19,200 --> 00:50:21,840
the right kind of way.
So that make a difference to to

778
00:50:21,840 --> 00:50:23,920
your to your intelligent
processing.

779
00:50:25,520 --> 00:50:29,080
But it, you know, if it's on a
von Neumann architecture, it

780
00:50:29,600 --> 00:50:35,440
would be mimicry in, in a sort
of vernacular sense, in the same

781
00:50:35,440 --> 00:50:40,040
way that the heart lung machine
is mimicking the, the

782
00:50:40,040 --> 00:50:44,920
functionality of the biological
heart and pulmonary system,

783
00:50:45,200 --> 00:50:48,480
which is of course the the real
thing can do forever.

784
00:50:48,480 --> 00:50:51,000
The heart lung machine is going
to run out of electricity at

785
00:50:51,000 --> 00:50:54,560
some point or break, you know,
it's just not fit for purpose

786
00:50:54,560 --> 00:50:57,840
for an, for an extended period
of time, unlike the mortal

787
00:50:58,640 --> 00:51:01,960
computation or the mortal
circulation that we enjoy with

788
00:51:01,960 --> 00:51:05,400
our actual heart and lungs.
So I think it's going to have to

789
00:51:05,400 --> 00:51:08,200
be mortal, which basically means
I think you're, you're looking

790
00:51:08,200 --> 00:51:12,080
at I, I would imagine
membristers of possibly

791
00:51:12,080 --> 00:51:14,840
photonics, but I think more more
likely to be membristers

792
00:51:15,840 --> 00:51:20,120
architectures.
And then the, the, the other

793
00:51:20,120 --> 00:51:24,880
thing we talked about is this
relational thing that the, this

794
00:51:24,880 --> 00:51:32,120
artefact has to learn to be like
you or to be like things that

795
00:51:32,120 --> 00:51:37,880
feel in order to have as part of
its generative model the notion

796
00:51:37,920 --> 00:51:42,840
of affect or feeling, or at
least be able to report that.

797
00:51:43,120 --> 00:51:46,680
Mark would probably argue not.
He would argue that you just

798
00:51:46,680 --> 00:51:51,920
need to equip it with the right
neuromodulators so that it can

799
00:51:52,160 --> 00:51:58,240
realise its inferences.
And what would they look like?

800
00:51:58,400 --> 00:52:00,320
Well, they look a little bit
like attention head in

801
00:52:00,320 --> 00:52:03,160
transformer architectures, but
with one key difference.

802
00:52:03,840 --> 00:52:10,480
These attention heads have to be
selected by some other, by some

803
00:52:10,560 --> 00:52:12,280
other aspect of the generative
model.

804
00:52:12,680 --> 00:52:17,000
So it's like having, if you like
a context sensitive learnable

805
00:52:17,000 --> 00:52:20,760
attention head.
And I think if that was

806
00:52:20,760 --> 00:52:27,000
implemented on a using in memory
processing or processing in

807
00:52:27,000 --> 00:52:30,600
memory memory computer
architectures with the right

808
00:52:30,600 --> 00:52:35,720
kind of reactive message passing
or actor model of as as Keith

809
00:52:36,280 --> 00:52:39,880
Dugard likes to likes to talk
about, I think you're getting

810
00:52:39,880 --> 00:52:42,880
very close to it.
And it would have to be done.

811
00:52:43,800 --> 00:52:48,160
It would have to be done in a,
in an interactional way.

812
00:52:48,240 --> 00:52:51,160
You'd have to, you know, you
can't just set it off and use

813
00:52:51,160 --> 00:52:53,320
reinforcement learning, come
back, make yourself conscious

814
00:52:53,320 --> 00:52:54,360
and let me know when you've done
it.

815
00:52:54,720 --> 00:52:58,520
It would have to be an ongoing
process of interaction within an

816
00:52:58,520 --> 00:53:02,640
ecosystem where there was some
shared generative model.

817
00:53:02,640 --> 00:53:05,520
And I forgot to say earlier on
again, this, this notion of

818
00:53:05,520 --> 00:53:08,960
homology is absolutely central,
I think because when I talk

819
00:53:08,960 --> 00:53:11,720
about these things,
consciousness depends upon a

820
00:53:11,720 --> 00:53:13,880
shared narrative or shared
charity model.

821
00:53:14,200 --> 00:53:16,760
And certainly talking about it
does because communicational

822
00:53:16,760 --> 00:53:19,600
language does.
So another aspect of homology is

823
00:53:19,600 --> 00:53:22,000
the fact that we all come to
share the same functional

824
00:53:22,000 --> 00:53:24,760
architectures because we all
learn the same things.

825
00:53:24,760 --> 00:53:27,600
We learn the same language.
And of course, that's a

826
00:53:27,600 --> 00:53:31,480
fundamental aspect of minimizing
uncertainty and minimizing free

827
00:53:31,480 --> 00:53:34,520
energy when we all come to
predict each other.

828
00:53:35,120 --> 00:53:38,840
And from that emerges language
and communication and of course

829
00:53:38,840 --> 00:53:43,680
the notion, the hypothesis that,
you know, we all have feelings

830
00:53:43,720 --> 00:53:46,400
and we can talk about the
feelings, not necessary to have

831
00:53:46,400 --> 00:53:48,080
the feelings, but we can
certainly talk about them.

832
00:53:48,440 --> 00:53:51,520
So if you want to have that as
part of your machine

833
00:53:51,520 --> 00:53:55,520
consciousness, that means you're
going to have to evolve in very

834
00:53:55,520 --> 00:53:57,560
much in the way that we grow.
You know, we bring up our

835
00:53:57,560 --> 00:53:59,520
children.
It's going to have to be a

836
00:53:59,520 --> 00:54:02,040
transactional process.
You're not going to be able to

837
00:54:02,040 --> 00:54:07,240
write down with an RL algorithm,
you know, or use a large

838
00:54:07,240 --> 00:54:09,480
language model go and make me a
conscious artifact.

839
00:54:09,960 --> 00:54:13,120
It's going to require a lot of a
lot of interaction, possibly

840
00:54:13,120 --> 00:54:18,160
dyadic or possibly Federated,
you know, in a sort of ecosystem

841
00:54:18,160 --> 00:54:21,600
that includes things that can
feel and we know, we think feel.

842
00:54:22,800 --> 00:54:26,320
Marks same question, Is it
possible to engineer artificial

843
00:54:26,320 --> 00:54:29,600
consciousness And thereafter you
can also address all the points

844
00:54:29,920 --> 00:54:31,840
that Cole made.
Yeah, yeah.

845
00:54:31,840 --> 00:54:36,760
I, I mean, this is the question
that our meeting is designed to

846
00:54:36,760 --> 00:54:39,600
address.
So, you know, I'm, I'm glad

847
00:54:39,600 --> 00:54:45,440
we're being asked to answer it
with, you know, half an hour to

848
00:54:45,440 --> 00:54:48,160
go.
So we, we still can can talk

849
00:54:48,160 --> 00:54:51,920
about mopping up the details.
But we've each, we, we must hear

850
00:54:51,920 --> 00:54:55,760
each commit to an answer, a
position on this question.

851
00:54:56,120 --> 00:54:58,480
Before I give you my answer,
which I don't think is going to

852
00:54:58,480 --> 00:55:01,680
come as a big surprise.
I just want to pick up on one

853
00:55:01,680 --> 00:55:06,440
detail in what Carl said
because, you know, as I keep

854
00:55:06,440 --> 00:55:09,520
saying, I'm not sure there's
anything we'll disagree about.

855
00:55:09,920 --> 00:55:14,720
So my comment on his previous
response was I'm worrying some

856
00:55:14,720 --> 00:55:18,760
people might think we disagree.
So I clarified that and I'm glad

857
00:55:18,760 --> 00:55:22,320
we don't disagree about, you
know, about about substrate

858
00:55:22,320 --> 00:55:28,720
independence as opposed to, you
know, functional architectural

859
00:55:29,160 --> 00:55:31,720
homology that that we agree
about.

860
00:55:32,120 --> 00:55:33,480
And that's the nub of the
matter.

861
00:55:34,560 --> 00:55:37,200
And it turned out to be the nub
of the matter in in a Neil's

862
00:55:37,200 --> 00:55:43,600
Article 2 the the point that
Carl said Mark might disagree.

863
00:55:44,000 --> 00:55:48,000
I want to pick up on that point
again in the spirit of wanting

864
00:55:48,000 --> 00:55:52,320
to clarify where do we disagree?
If we do, it was on the question

865
00:55:52,320 --> 00:55:55,360
of reportability.
And so I want to say something

866
00:55:55,360 --> 00:55:59,200
about that which might seem sort
of peripheral or even

867
00:55:59,200 --> 00:56:02,240
gratuitous, but but it turns out
to be quite important.

868
00:56:03,240 --> 00:56:09,680
Many of my colleagues working in
the this field of, you know, of

869
00:56:09,960 --> 00:56:13,360
consciousness neuroscience of
consciousness, they hold

870
00:56:13,360 --> 00:56:16,240
reportability to be the
empirical gold standard.

871
00:56:16,640 --> 00:56:19,960
They're saying if you, if, if
you, and they're speaking

872
00:56:19,960 --> 00:56:22,360
because they're anthropocentric,
you know, they, they have in

873
00:56:22,360 --> 00:56:26,480
mind humans and they're saying,
look, if the person like, for

874
00:56:26,480 --> 00:56:30,800
example, when you reducing the
speed of the stimulus in a

875
00:56:30,800 --> 00:56:34,120
tektoscopic setup or something
like that, there has to be a

876
00:56:34,120 --> 00:56:38,400
certain point where the person
says, I no longer see it.

877
00:56:38,960 --> 00:56:41,560
Or there has to be a certain
point at which they say, now I

878
00:56:41,560 --> 00:56:43,800
see it.
And you know, that is the

879
00:56:43,800 --> 00:56:46,600
empirical criterion.
It's because we're talking about

880
00:56:46,600 --> 00:56:48,960
consciousness, we're talking
about experience and you have to

881
00:56:48,960 --> 00:56:51,440
report I am experiencing it or
I'm not.

882
00:56:51,720 --> 00:56:58,160
And they, you know, so the, the,
this was thrown at me, for

883
00:56:58,160 --> 00:57:00,640
example, recently, you know,
when I speak of Hydra and

884
00:57:00,640 --> 00:57:03,400
cephalic children who've got no
cortex, they say, well, there's

885
00:57:03,400 --> 00:57:05,760
no empirical evidence that they
can't, just because they can't

886
00:57:05,760 --> 00:57:08,840
report.
And I say, yeah, you know, my

887
00:57:08,840 --> 00:57:12,360
Labrador can't report.
My, my, my, my children couldn't

888
00:57:12,360 --> 00:57:13,960
report before they learned to
speak.

889
00:57:13,960 --> 00:57:16,680
And are you really seriously,
you know, claiming that my

890
00:57:16,680 --> 00:57:19,960
Labrador is, is not conscious
because it can't report.

891
00:57:20,360 --> 00:57:24,800
And, and the, the, the argument
I, I, I make there is it's

892
00:57:25,400 --> 00:57:28,360
reportability is it's the
easiest thing in the world to

893
00:57:28,360 --> 00:57:31,080
get something to report that
it's conscious when it's not,

894
00:57:32,080 --> 00:57:36,400
you know, it's so I, I don't
disagree with Carl about

895
00:57:36,400 --> 00:57:41,320
reportability in the sense that,
you know, I would like my agent

896
00:57:41,440 --> 00:57:46,000
to be able to report that it's
conscious, but it's very easy to

897
00:57:46,000 --> 00:57:49,920
mislead.
It's very easy to get a entirely

898
00:57:50,800 --> 00:57:56,480
non conscious agent to say like,
like a large language model.

899
00:57:56,480 --> 00:57:59,320
You know, it can say I'm feeling
such and such, but there's no

900
00:57:59,320 --> 00:58:01,160
reason whatsoever to believe
that it is.

901
00:58:01,760 --> 00:58:05,600
And so we we've got to get
beyond reportability.

902
00:58:06,080 --> 00:58:10,120
And this brings us back to, you
know, what do we really mean by

903
00:58:10,920 --> 00:58:14,680
what is a conscious state?
And it comes back again to this

904
00:58:14,680 --> 00:58:19,680
question of mimicry.
If, if we, if we accept and not

905
00:58:19,680 --> 00:58:22,240
everybody accepts it, but if we
accept, for the sake of

906
00:58:22,240 --> 00:58:29,040
argument, my claim that raw
feeling is the elemental form of

907
00:58:29,040 --> 00:58:31,120
consciousness.
All you have to have is feeling.

908
00:58:31,480 --> 00:58:34,960
To be able to report it is
great, but you don't have to be

909
00:58:34,960 --> 00:58:37,280
able to report it.
You just have to be able to feel

910
00:58:37,280 --> 00:58:41,520
it.
To me that cannot be mimicked

911
00:58:41,840 --> 00:58:44,440
except in the sense of
misleading us, you know, So

912
00:58:44,440 --> 00:58:46,520
that's why I'm saying
reportability is a very

913
00:58:46,520 --> 00:58:50,760
misleading criterion because
it's so easy to create an, an

914
00:58:50,760 --> 00:58:54,480
artificial intelligence that's
going to report also and sort,

915
00:58:54,640 --> 00:58:57,200
which is mimicry in the sense of
misleading us.

916
00:58:57,680 --> 00:59:02,920
But you can't mimic a feeling
that because it's it's presence

917
00:59:02,920 --> 00:59:06,240
or absence is is a subjective
presence or absence, you know.

918
00:59:06,240 --> 00:59:09,680
So if there's a feeling there,
it can't be mimicked, It is

919
00:59:09,680 --> 00:59:11,480
felt.
Whether it's an artificial

920
00:59:11,480 --> 00:59:14,920
feeling or a biological feeling
is a different matter.

921
00:59:15,160 --> 00:59:19,880
But to me, the thing that we're
talking about when we speak of

922
00:59:19,880 --> 00:59:22,080
consciousness, to me
fundamentally we're talking

923
00:59:22,080 --> 00:59:28,360
about feeling and a feeling when
it's there will be felt.

924
00:59:28,440 --> 00:59:31,240
And therefore it's not
something, it's not a

925
00:59:31,240 --> 00:59:35,400
behavioural thing, It's a, it's
a, it's a felt, it's a, it's a

926
00:59:35,400 --> 00:59:39,720
state of the system.
So now to your question, the,

927
00:59:39,760 --> 00:59:42,160
the big question, which as I
said, my answer is not

928
00:59:42,200 --> 00:59:43,840
surprising.
Absolutely.

929
00:59:43,840 --> 00:59:48,520
I believe that it is possible to
engineer an artificial

930
00:59:48,520 --> 00:59:52,440
consciousness.
I see no reason whatsoever why

931
00:59:52,440 --> 00:59:55,520
we can't do it.
And it's because of what I said

932
00:59:55,520 --> 00:59:57,480
earlier.
So I won't repeat it in detail.

933
00:59:57,480 --> 00:59:59,400
I'll just give you the headline
again.

934
00:59:59,680 --> 01:00:03,600
It's part of nature.
It, it's, it's not exempt from

935
01:00:04,280 --> 01:00:08,760
the, the, the, the if
something's part of nature, to

936
01:00:08,840 --> 01:00:12,320
quote Feynman, you know that
that statement that he wrote on

937
01:00:12,320 --> 01:00:14,640
his blackboard, which was found
upon his death.

938
01:00:15,240 --> 01:00:17,800
If I can't create it, I don't
understand it.

939
01:00:18,160 --> 01:00:21,560
Was what he wrote.
And so, you know, if you

940
01:00:21,560 --> 01:00:24,840
understand how, how
consciousness in the sense that

941
01:00:24,840 --> 01:00:28,320
I'm using it, how feeling
arises, then you should be able

942
01:00:28,320 --> 01:00:36,520
to create it.
So I believe we, we, if we, to

943
01:00:36,560 --> 01:00:40,720
the extent that we do understand
how feeling arises, we can

944
01:00:40,720 --> 01:00:44,200
create it now already.
But I'm not so sure that we have

945
01:00:44,200 --> 01:00:46,760
a complete understanding of how
feeling arises.

946
01:00:46,760 --> 01:00:48,720
But I think we're in the right
sort of ballpark.

947
01:00:48,960 --> 01:00:51,880
If we're in the utterly wrong
ballpark, somebody else will

948
01:00:51,880 --> 01:00:54,720
understand how feelings arise
and they will create it

949
01:00:54,960 --> 01:00:57,680
artificially.
So I'm, I'm, I'm unequivocal

950
01:00:58,200 --> 01:01:01,920
that it's possible and it's, and
it will happen.

951
01:01:02,080 --> 01:01:04,560
It's just a matter of when and
how.

952
01:01:05,320 --> 01:01:12,600
So let me add then some detail
in terms of, you know what, what

953
01:01:12,600 --> 01:01:16,480
do I think causes feeling?
And I'll try to be brief.

954
01:01:16,480 --> 01:01:19,480
Obviously, you know, because of
time constraints, I'm, I'm not

955
01:01:19,480 --> 01:01:22,240
going to be, I'm not going to do
full justice to the whole thing.

956
01:01:22,560 --> 01:01:28,240
But I think that a mark of
blanketed self organizing system

957
01:01:28,760 --> 01:01:32,160
from the point of view of such
as first of all, such a system

958
01:01:32,160 --> 01:01:36,080
does have a point of view, which
is an important starting point.

959
01:01:36,480 --> 01:01:39,240
There's an important
prerequisite for selfhood.

960
01:01:39,360 --> 01:01:41,120
You know, it has to have a point
of view.

961
01:01:41,120 --> 01:01:44,760
There's a, there's the point of
view of the system upon what is

962
01:01:44,760 --> 01:01:48,480
not the system.
That that from the point of view

963
01:01:48,480 --> 01:01:50,560
of such a system.
And Please note what I've

964
01:01:50,560 --> 01:01:52,480
described is not something
complicated.

965
01:01:52,480 --> 01:01:55,960
You know, this is something
easily engineered a, an

966
01:01:55,960 --> 01:02:00,560
artificial self organizing
system with a, with a mark of

967
01:02:00,560 --> 01:02:02,160
blanket, which has a point of
view.

968
01:02:02,160 --> 01:02:06,680
And from its point of view,
increasing free energy just is

969
01:02:06,680 --> 01:02:10,560
bad.
It just is, you know, so and,

970
01:02:10,600 --> 01:02:14,200
and, and it's important to
emphasize it's only bad from the

971
01:02:14,200 --> 01:02:18,480
point of view of the system.
So there we have subjectivity

972
01:02:18,520 --> 01:02:24,000
and mechanistic basis for, for
describing what we mean by and I

973
01:02:24,000 --> 01:02:28,240
don't mean felt subjectivity.
I'm I'm saying there is a point

974
01:02:28,240 --> 01:02:32,640
of view of such a system and it
and it's registering something,

975
01:02:33,280 --> 01:02:39,560
some mechanistic property is
being registered within a value

976
01:02:39,560 --> 01:02:43,920
system, which from the point of
view of the of the system,

977
01:02:44,360 --> 01:02:47,600
increasing free energy is bad
for the system.

978
01:02:48,360 --> 01:02:51,440
So there we have valence,
mechanistically described

979
01:02:51,480 --> 01:02:56,360
goodness and vadnais
subjectively construed in

980
01:02:56,360 --> 01:03:01,080
entirely mechanistic terms.
And then what you need to add to

981
01:03:01,080 --> 01:03:06,280
that is that that's a, that's a
continuous variable, you know,

982
01:03:06,280 --> 01:03:14,400
free energy going up and down.
The valence is not, it's not,

983
01:03:14,400 --> 01:03:16,000
it's not.
It's a value.

984
01:03:16,360 --> 01:03:18,960
But I think you need to add
something more, which is that,

985
01:03:19,280 --> 01:03:23,800
that, that that complex systems
of the kind I have in mind have

986
01:03:23,800 --> 01:03:29,360
multiple, they have multiple
needs, multiple survival needs.

987
01:03:29,360 --> 01:03:32,360
I mean, they're multiple
categories of things that have

988
01:03:32,360 --> 01:03:37,600
to be kept within their viable
bounds for the system to

989
01:03:37,600 --> 01:03:39,920
persist.
By the way, I need to, I should

990
01:03:39,920 --> 01:03:41,360
have emphasized that at the
beginning.

991
01:03:41,360 --> 01:03:44,720
I completely agree with Kahul
that such a system has to be

992
01:03:44,720 --> 01:03:47,280
artificially alive.
It's it's, it's, you know,

993
01:03:47,560 --> 01:03:51,160
artificially alive that it's,
it's what I'm describing is a

994
01:03:51,160 --> 01:03:56,600
system that is seeking only to
continue to exist as a system

995
01:03:56,600 --> 01:04:00,360
That that's the what I've just
described mechanistically is

996
01:04:00,360 --> 01:04:02,680
such a system.
But if it has multiple

997
01:04:02,680 --> 01:04:07,240
categories of need, multiple
categories of viable bounds,

998
01:04:07,560 --> 01:04:11,760
then those must be treated as
categorical variables by the

999
01:04:11,760 --> 01:04:13,800
system.
They must mechanistically, they

1000
01:04:13,800 --> 01:04:15,440
must.
They can't.

1001
01:04:15,440 --> 01:04:19,520
You can't add 8 out of 10 of
thirst to 8 out of 10 of

1002
01:04:19,520 --> 01:04:22,560
sleepiness and say that's 16 out
of 20 of total need.

1003
01:04:22,560 --> 01:04:23,960
Therefore all I need to do is
sleep.

1004
01:04:24,240 --> 01:04:26,000
If you don't also drink, you
will die.

1005
01:04:26,440 --> 01:04:32,280
So these these needs have to be
treated as categorical

1006
01:04:32,280 --> 01:04:35,880
variables, which means, and
here's the crucial point that

1007
01:04:36,080 --> 01:04:40,360
they necessarily are
qualitatively differentiated.

1008
01:04:41,840 --> 01:04:44,840
That's what we mean by a
categorical variable that when I

1009
01:04:44,840 --> 01:04:47,840
say that 8 out of 10 of
sleepiness is not the same thing

1010
01:04:47,840 --> 01:04:51,840
as 8 out of 10 of thirst, they
are qualitatively different.

1011
01:04:52,600 --> 01:04:57,080
And so there I think we have a
mechanistic account of, of, of

1012
01:04:57,080 --> 01:05:01,120
the Ground Zero of qualia that
from the point of view of such a

1013
01:05:01,120 --> 01:05:03,960
system, it's got that point of
view.

1014
01:05:04,280 --> 01:05:07,280
It has a subjective goodness or
vadnais, which must be

1015
01:05:07,280 --> 01:05:11,600
qualitatively differentiated.
And all of this is registered

1016
01:05:11,680 --> 01:05:15,840
only internally by the system
for the system.

1017
01:05:16,280 --> 01:05:19,960
I think that that that's the
kind of basic functional, very

1018
01:05:19,960 --> 01:05:21,520
basic.
Remember, I'm not going into

1019
01:05:21,520 --> 01:05:26,000
details, but for me, that's the
basic functional architecture of

1020
01:05:26,000 --> 01:05:31,360
a system that that that has an
elementary form of feeling.

1021
01:05:32,800 --> 01:05:34,920
There's a lot more detail, but
that's that's my.

1022
01:05:35,360 --> 01:05:39,000
So when I say if we're in the
right ballpark, that's the

1023
01:05:39,000 --> 01:05:42,840
ballpark I'm in.
Mark, anything about that you'd

1024
01:05:42,840 --> 01:05:46,160
like to comment on and and just
to try and play devil's advocate

1025
01:05:46,160 --> 01:05:48,360
to try and see if there's
anything you guys do disagree

1026
01:05:48,360 --> 01:05:50,800
with.
How much importance do you

1027
01:05:50,880 --> 01:05:54,560
please call Sir on on feeling
and this version of feeling that

1028
01:05:54,560 --> 01:05:58,960
Mark just defined and described
valence and qualia in in terms

1029
01:05:58,960 --> 01:06:01,440
of consciousness and then trying
to engineer it.

1030
01:06:03,760 --> 01:06:08,960
I put a lot of emphasis on on
that for a particular reason,

1031
01:06:08,960 --> 01:06:17,600
which I will conclude with.
But just just to take that key

1032
01:06:17,600 --> 01:06:22,280
point that Mark just made from a
technical perspective.

1033
01:06:23,440 --> 01:06:27,680
If you remember before I was
glibly saying you can't just use

1034
01:06:27,680 --> 01:06:30,920
a large language model to say go
and make me an intelligent

1035
01:06:30,920 --> 01:06:35,160
artifact or use deep RL.
I had a reason for saying that.

1036
01:06:35,960 --> 01:06:40,800
And the reason is exactly what
Mark was describing in terms of

1037
01:06:41,080 --> 01:06:46,320
multiple variables that need
that provide constraints on the

1038
01:06:46,320 --> 01:06:49,920
kind of thing that I am or the
states that are characteristic

1039
01:06:49,920 --> 01:06:53,120
of the kind of thing that I am.
And if I violate those states,

1040
01:06:53,560 --> 01:06:57,960
then I will be very surprised I
will have a high free energy.

1041
01:06:57,960 --> 01:07:03,440
So just keeping myself within
those viable range of essential

1042
01:07:03,440 --> 01:07:09,080
variables of of any sort is just
a definition of existing and

1043
01:07:09,080 --> 01:07:10,080
living.
And of course if your

1044
01:07:10,080 --> 01:07:12,880
physiologist, it's just a
definition of homeostasis and

1045
01:07:12,880 --> 01:07:18,200
possibly homeoresis analostasis.
If you're a statistician or of

1046
01:07:18,560 --> 01:07:21,920
at least a statistical
physicist, what you're talking

1047
01:07:21,920 --> 01:07:25,200
about is the maths of multiple
constraint satisfaction.

1048
01:07:25,560 --> 01:07:29,120
So I would read the multiple
categories that Mark was talking

1049
01:07:29,120 --> 01:07:31,920
about that cannot be collapsed
into one dimension.

1050
01:07:32,640 --> 01:07:35,000
He was talking about thirst and
hunger, for example.

1051
01:07:35,640 --> 01:07:37,480
These are two-dimensional
structures.

1052
01:07:37,480 --> 01:07:39,440
In fact they're multi
dimensional structures.

1053
01:07:39,760 --> 01:07:42,640
So you got multiple constraints
that have to be satisfied.

1054
01:07:42,920 --> 01:07:47,160
And I use that phraseology
because that is exactly what you

1055
01:07:47,160 --> 01:07:50,840
get when you turn to the good
and great of statistical

1056
01:07:50,840 --> 01:07:56,160
physics, for example, ET Janes.
So he describes physics,

1057
01:07:56,160 --> 01:07:59,720
certainly it's meteorological
measurement aspect of physics,

1058
01:08:00,160 --> 01:08:05,640
just as maximum entropy under
constraints.

1059
01:08:05,920 --> 01:08:08,840
And it's the constraints that
shape the kind of thing you are

1060
01:08:09,200 --> 01:08:12,800
and violating those constraints
just is increasing free energy.

1061
01:08:13,320 --> 01:08:19,720
So from a physicist perspective,
that what marks sort of emphasis

1062
01:08:20,040 --> 01:08:23,840
on multiple ways of being
surprised, multiple ways of

1063
01:08:23,840 --> 01:08:28,760
dying, multiple ways of being
out of kilter in a homeostatic

1064
01:08:28,760 --> 01:08:31,720
or emotional or social or
whatever sense.

1065
01:08:32,479 --> 01:08:39,520
This is what basically provides
the the shape of you and

1066
01:08:39,520 --> 01:08:43,319
yourself organization.
And complying with those

1067
01:08:43,319 --> 01:08:47,120
constraints just is a
constrained maximum entropy

1068
01:08:47,120 --> 01:08:50,319
principle that just is the free
energy principle.

1069
01:08:51,319 --> 01:08:53,560
So on that level, I thought that
was the important thing, which

1070
01:08:53,560 --> 01:08:57,040
is why you can't do with RL.
You can't do with reinforcement

1071
01:08:57,040 --> 01:09:01,720
learning because you've only got
1 category to reinforce the

1072
01:09:01,720 --> 01:09:07,720
money or sweeties of likes.
You can't do multiple constraint

1073
01:09:07,720 --> 01:09:13,120
satisfaction properly with RL,
but you can do it with your

1074
01:09:13,120 --> 01:09:15,399
constraint maximum entropy
principles or the free energy

1075
01:09:15,399 --> 01:09:18,760
principle or active inference,
provided you you've got the

1076
01:09:18,760 --> 01:09:22,520
right functional architecture in
play that has all of these

1077
01:09:22,760 --> 01:09:24,840
multiple constraints and
dimensions.

1078
01:09:25,520 --> 01:09:29,880
Everything, everything that
either can be observed or

1079
01:09:29,880 --> 01:09:33,160
everything that is brought to
the table to explain those

1080
01:09:33,160 --> 01:09:35,439
observations, they all have to
have a shape.

1081
01:09:35,560 --> 01:09:37,319
Some of them will be very, very
precise.

1082
01:09:37,560 --> 01:09:44,760
You know, I can only be ±.6°C
away from this preferred

1083
01:09:44,760 --> 01:09:47,760
temperature.
Some can be very, very

1084
01:09:48,000 --> 01:09:51,439
forgiving.
You know, I can be me in the

1085
01:09:51,439 --> 01:09:54,800
North Pole, I can be me in New
York, I can be me in Cape Town.

1086
01:09:55,520 --> 01:09:59,280
So, you know, some things have
enormous, very precise

1087
01:09:59,280 --> 01:10:02,600
constraints and sometimes and
sometimes they have less, but

1088
01:10:02,600 --> 01:10:04,080
they still have to be
constrained.

1089
01:10:04,080 --> 01:10:07,560
They define, they define.
So you need a calculus, you need

1090
01:10:07,560 --> 01:10:11,640
an algorithm, you need a, a
description, a mechanics of self

1091
01:10:11,640 --> 01:10:13,800
organization that allows for
this.

1092
01:10:13,800 --> 01:10:16,920
And, and I think that that
that's, that's a point which,

1093
01:10:17,040 --> 01:10:25,360
you know, I've just reiterated
in terms of is, you know, Mark

1094
01:10:25,360 --> 01:10:27,400
did say he was keeping it really
simple.

1095
01:10:27,760 --> 01:10:30,960
To my mind, I think he kept it a
bit too simple.

1096
01:10:31,440 --> 01:10:39,040
I think just making inferences
under constraints, I think

1097
01:10:39,080 --> 01:10:43,560
denies him the opportunity to
wax lyrical about the encoding

1098
01:10:43,560 --> 01:10:47,640
of uncertainty and the very
essence of beliefs.

1099
01:10:48,360 --> 01:10:52,040
You know, we, we, we start off
by saying that I can only

1100
01:10:52,040 --> 01:10:54,120
believe you are conscious.
I can never know.

1101
01:10:54,880 --> 01:10:58,040
So we're talking about a
calculus of, of belief

1102
01:10:58,040 --> 01:10:59,520
structures of probability
densities.

1103
01:10:59,680 --> 01:11:02,840
And of course, the most
important, well, the second most

1104
01:11:02,840 --> 01:11:05,760
important aspect of a
probability distribution or

1105
01:11:05,760 --> 01:11:09,520
belief structure after it's
locational content is it's

1106
01:11:09,520 --> 01:11:15,080
shape.
And for me that would be simply

1107
01:11:15,080 --> 01:11:17,960
described in terms of it's neg
entropy or, or or it's

1108
01:11:17,960 --> 01:11:20,960
precision.
So the encoding of uncertainty

1109
01:11:21,720 --> 01:11:28,280
in working out how to say to
your needs to me is the heart of

1110
01:11:28,280 --> 01:11:32,280
feeling.
As I read Mark, he didn't say

1111
01:11:32,280 --> 01:11:34,720
that, so I'm going to pass it
back to him to see if he wants

1112
01:11:34,720 --> 01:11:37,880
to be slightly less simple.
Yeah, just having an inference

1113
01:11:37,880 --> 01:11:42,280
machine that that complies with
some pride preferences.

1114
01:11:43,320 --> 01:11:47,040
I, I, I, I mean, it may be
right, but I get the feeling

1115
01:11:47,040 --> 01:11:50,600
that that much of your thinking
and the Yeah.

1116
01:11:50,600 --> 01:11:52,720
And I know, of course Tevin does
as well.

1117
01:11:52,720 --> 01:11:56,800
But for those people don't know,
Mark actually has a group of

1118
01:11:57,120 --> 01:11:59,360
bright young things actually
trying to build artificial

1119
01:11:59,360 --> 01:12:02,680
consciousness at the moment, and
he's taking it a little bit

1120
01:12:02,680 --> 01:12:05,840
further than his straightforward
explanation would suggest.

1121
01:12:07,400 --> 01:12:11,840
Yes, thank you, Carl.
I, I, I really want when I'm my

1122
01:12:11,840 --> 01:12:14,760
mind, my eye on the clock.
And so I wanted to keep it

1123
01:12:14,760 --> 01:12:17,440
absolutely simple.
And the thing that I was

1124
01:12:18,280 --> 01:12:22,520
emphasizing is in very broad
brush strokes, what do we mean

1125
01:12:22,520 --> 01:12:27,200
by a mortal system and why, why
does what, what kind of mortal

1126
01:12:27,200 --> 01:12:29,840
system?
Where does the possibility or

1127
01:12:29,840 --> 01:12:32,240
the necessity of feeling fit
into it?

1128
01:12:32,240 --> 01:12:34,840
And so I was saying the
necessity of feeling fits into

1129
01:12:34,840 --> 01:12:39,760
it in the sense that it's it's
values in terms of trying to

1130
01:12:40,640 --> 01:12:44,400
remain in existence.
In other words, it's monitoring

1131
01:12:44,400 --> 01:12:49,640
of its free energy has to be has
to be distributed across

1132
01:12:50,040 --> 01:12:52,920
multiple categories, which means
they must be qualitatively

1133
01:12:52,920 --> 01:12:55,720
registered by the system.
But that's what I said is

1134
01:12:55,720 --> 01:13:01,720
certainly not sufficient to to.
So let's start with what Carl

1135
01:13:01,720 --> 01:13:04,680
ended with when he spoke about a
prior preference distribution,

1136
01:13:04,680 --> 01:13:08,400
he said, you know, it's, it's
not enough just to for such a

1137
01:13:08,400 --> 01:13:10,720
system just to be maintaining
its prior preference

1138
01:13:10,720 --> 01:13:13,560
distribution.
So I'll add here a little bit of

1139
01:13:13,560 --> 01:13:17,680
detail.
And before I do that, I want to

1140
01:13:17,680 --> 01:13:23,080
say picking up on on, on what
Carl has just said, that I am

1141
01:13:23,600 --> 01:13:27,960
leading A-Team together with my
colleague Jonathan Shock, a

1142
01:13:28,080 --> 01:13:32,400
brilliant young physicist, which
is trying to do this.

1143
01:13:32,400 --> 01:13:37,520
We're trying to instantiate the
sorts of functional

1144
01:13:37,520 --> 01:13:39,160
architectures that we're talking
about.

1145
01:13:39,160 --> 01:13:43,920
And so I know from experience
how difficult it is when it gets

1146
01:13:43,920 --> 01:13:46,720
down to the detail.
I mean it's extremely, we've

1147
01:13:46,720 --> 01:13:50,280
been at it for a few years and
we're dealing with minute

1148
01:13:50,800 --> 01:13:54,480
complex things all the time.
So you know, even what I'm going

1149
01:13:54,480 --> 01:13:58,480
to say now is still very broad
brush strokey compared to the

1150
01:13:58,960 --> 01:14:02,000
level of granular problem that
we that you end up having to

1151
01:14:02,000 --> 01:14:04,560
grapple with.
So picking up on this prior

1152
01:14:04,560 --> 01:14:10,800
preference distribution, there
is this is the, this is the,

1153
01:14:10,840 --> 01:14:14,720
this the essential next, next
point is it's a matter of

1154
01:14:14,720 --> 01:14:19,240
prioritizing which of those
categories at anyone point in

1155
01:14:19,240 --> 01:14:25,680
time is going to be, is going to
be subject to, to, to, to

1156
01:14:25,680 --> 01:14:28,200
voluntary requires voluntary
behaviour.

1157
01:14:28,200 --> 01:14:32,920
In other words, the capacity to
change your mind, to choose one

1158
01:14:33,320 --> 01:14:36,680
path of action as opposed to
another.

1159
01:14:37,240 --> 01:14:41,680
You can't do that with all those
categories simultaneously.

1160
01:14:41,680 --> 01:14:44,600
You, you can't do everything at
once there.

1161
01:14:44,680 --> 01:14:49,480
There's a, there's a, an action
bottleneck and A and an

1162
01:14:49,480 --> 01:14:52,840
intentional bottleneck.
And it's they, they boil down to

1163
01:14:52,840 --> 01:14:56,200
being produced very similar
things, which is, which is

1164
01:14:56,200 --> 01:15:01,360
extremely interesting.
So it's a matter of I've got to,

1165
01:15:02,000 --> 01:15:10,560
I have a need which is heading
in into non viable territory and

1166
01:15:11,320 --> 01:15:15,800
I now need to institute a policy
as to how to satisfy this need.

1167
01:15:15,800 --> 01:15:20,320
In other words, how to return to
my preferred state, which is an,

1168
01:15:20,480 --> 01:15:23,280
which is not just a preference
in this, in this, it's, it's,

1169
01:15:23,280 --> 01:15:26,840
it's an existential requirement,
you know, so I've got to return

1170
01:15:26,840 --> 01:15:31,840
to my preferred state.
And so I act in accordance with

1171
01:15:31,840 --> 01:15:34,960
my policy.
And this is what voluntary

1172
01:15:34,960 --> 01:15:39,400
action boils down to.
I am able to register how well

1173
01:15:39,400 --> 01:15:41,920
or badly is this going before
it's too late.

1174
01:15:42,240 --> 01:15:47,280
That's the crux of why we feel
so those values I was talking

1175
01:15:47,280 --> 01:15:52,040
about don't only they the value
of it's good to survive and bad

1176
01:15:52,040 --> 01:15:54,760
to die.
You know, don't only work on a,

1177
01:15:55,080 --> 01:15:58,080
on the level of natural
selection over generations, but

1178
01:15:58,120 --> 01:16:02,680
for me now as a mortal system,
how do I know before it's too

1179
01:16:02,680 --> 01:16:05,960
late whether the, whether the
policy that I'm following is

1180
01:16:05,960 --> 01:16:10,040
succeeding or not?
And so it's feeling my way

1181
01:16:10,040 --> 01:16:16,000
through the problem and and
changing my behaviour

1182
01:16:16,240 --> 01:16:19,920
accordingly.
That is the mechanistic basis of

1183
01:16:19,920 --> 01:16:21,760
that is what Carl was just
talking about.

1184
01:16:22,000 --> 01:16:25,560
It is palpating my confidence in
the policy.

1185
01:16:26,200 --> 01:16:28,760
So the and that's got to do with
the precision.

1186
01:16:29,080 --> 01:16:33,560
So it's, it's modulating my
confidence, modulating the

1187
01:16:33,560 --> 01:16:39,000
precision in this policy versus
alternative, alternative

1188
01:16:39,000 --> 01:16:42,040
policies.
In other words, this policy or

1189
01:16:42,040 --> 01:16:46,240
some future policy changing your
mind at the system, changing

1190
01:16:46,240 --> 01:16:50,000
it's mind.
I don't hesitate to use the that

1191
01:16:50,000 --> 01:16:55,840
phrase as as it's going along.
And while it's doing that in the

1192
01:16:55,840 --> 01:17:01,520
in the prioritized category of
of need, the other needs are

1193
01:17:01,520 --> 01:17:08,000
being they can't be disregarded,
but they are being relegated to

1194
01:17:08,160 --> 01:17:11,720
automaticity.
So as so they're they're,

1195
01:17:11,720 --> 01:17:16,520
they're fixed precisions, the
policies I'm running those

1196
01:17:16,520 --> 01:17:19,440
policies on that one, but on the
and that doesn't have to be 1

1197
01:17:19,440 --> 01:17:20,240
prior.
It doesn't need.

1198
01:17:20,240 --> 01:17:22,680
It can be two conflict,
competing conflicting needs.

1199
01:17:22,680 --> 01:17:26,440
But the point is that there's a,
there's an attentional spotlight

1200
01:17:26,440 --> 01:17:29,760
in terms of what is going to be
subject to voluntary action.

1201
01:17:29,760 --> 01:17:33,520
In other words, to the palpating
of my precision in my action

1202
01:17:33,520 --> 01:17:36,760
policies as I go along.
And all of that is tethered to

1203
01:17:36,760 --> 01:17:40,880
feeling in, in the sense of this
is going well or badly in terms

1204
01:17:40,880 --> 01:17:43,640
of this particular category,
this particular quality.

1205
01:17:43,880 --> 01:17:48,800
Meanwhile, everything else, you
know, is, is relegated to

1206
01:17:48,800 --> 01:17:51,120
automaticity for this action
cycle.

1207
01:17:51,360 --> 01:17:55,320
But then what is to be
prioritized next, You know, in,

1208
01:17:56,520 --> 01:18:01,160
in, in each, in, in each sort of
artificially divided action

1209
01:18:01,160 --> 01:18:04,040
cycle?
It's, it's, it's the, the, the

1210
01:18:04,120 --> 01:18:08,400
focus may not shift to another
need or on the basis of another

1211
01:18:08,400 --> 01:18:12,200
opportunity.
And that too is all is all

1212
01:18:12,200 --> 01:18:14,240
regulated on the basis of
precision.

1213
01:18:14,400 --> 01:18:18,280
So it's a matter of precisions
in the needs and then precisions

1214
01:18:18,280 --> 01:18:21,840
in the policies that we're
following to meet those needs.

1215
01:18:22,400 --> 01:18:26,320
All of that has to do with the
modulation of precision and

1216
01:18:26,320 --> 01:18:29,160
coming back to functional
architectures and to actual

1217
01:18:29,160 --> 01:18:33,440
anatomical architectures.
This, this is what happens in

1218
01:18:33,440 --> 01:18:35,600
the brain, at least our
vertebrates.

1219
01:18:35,800 --> 01:18:41,200
That's the, the, the, the, the
part of the system that's that's

1220
01:18:41,320 --> 01:18:47,360
modulating this precision in all
the in in all of the sensory

1221
01:18:47,360 --> 01:18:52,880
motor message passing is the
reticular activating system or

1222
01:18:53,000 --> 01:18:59,040
these these arousal structures
which are, which are modulating

1223
01:18:59,040 --> 01:19:02,040
post synaptic gain.
So the functionality that we've

1224
01:19:02,040 --> 01:19:04,840
just described is the
functionality of those

1225
01:19:05,040 --> 01:19:07,400
anatomical systems in the
vertebrate brain.

1226
01:19:08,160 --> 01:19:10,560
So, you know, this is the kind
of thing that gives me

1227
01:19:10,560 --> 01:19:12,080
confidence beyond the right
track.

1228
01:19:16,840 --> 01:19:18,360
You.
You're muted, Tevin.

1229
01:19:19,760 --> 01:19:22,520
Thanks, Mark.
Carl, anything you'd like to add

1230
01:19:22,520 --> 01:19:25,360
to that?
And also while we edit, Mark, at

1231
01:19:25,360 --> 01:19:27,680
some point you can just tell us
as well some of the problems you

1232
01:19:27,680 --> 01:19:29,960
might be having on encountering
because you're actively working

1233
01:19:29,960 --> 01:19:32,600
on this.
Maybe Carl has some some some

1234
01:19:32,600 --> 01:19:34,400
answers to some of those
problems.

1235
01:19:37,440 --> 01:19:41,480
Just make a couple of just to
pick up on something that was

1236
01:19:41,480 --> 01:19:45,400
implicit but really important.
So notice that Mark where he's

1237
01:19:45,400 --> 01:19:48,920
actually getting into the job of
building machine consciousness.

1238
01:19:50,680 --> 01:19:57,920
Notice that everything was about
policies, which means that we're

1239
01:19:57,920 --> 01:20:01,000
talking about functional
architectures that support

1240
01:20:01,000 --> 01:20:03,120
agency.
So that's quite important.

1241
01:20:03,120 --> 01:20:05,280
You're not going to get
consciousness from a large

1242
01:20:05,280 --> 01:20:07,800
language model, because the
large language model doesn't do

1243
01:20:07,800 --> 01:20:10,880
the prompting.
It doesn't act upon the world.

1244
01:20:11,880 --> 01:20:14,600
So you have to have a, a
different kind of functional

1245
01:20:14,600 --> 01:20:19,920
architecture to have policies to
have in mind the consequences of

1246
01:20:19,920 --> 01:20:23,080
your actions and indeed to use
Mark's word, to feel your way

1247
01:20:23,080 --> 01:20:26,800
into the future and then select
the most likely and adjust in

1248
01:20:26,800 --> 01:20:30,080
the face of evidence that you
secure by pursuing this policy

1249
01:20:30,080 --> 01:20:32,200
or or that policy.
I thought it was just important

1250
01:20:32,200 --> 01:20:36,560
to say that, you know, there are
certain architectures that are

1251
01:20:36,560 --> 01:20:40,520
requisite if you ever want to
walk towards, you know, a

1252
01:20:40,520 --> 01:20:43,920
conscious and that notion of
agency.

1253
01:20:45,280 --> 01:20:49,160
I think it, it's just worthwhile
noting that the very word to

1254
01:20:49,160 --> 01:20:54,760
feel is a verb.
So to feel is not a state of I

1255
01:20:54,760 --> 01:20:57,160
am not in a state of being of
feeling.

1256
01:20:58,600 --> 01:21:01,800
Mark is the word palpate.
To feel is to palpate.

1257
01:21:02,240 --> 01:21:05,640
So what we're talking about is a
gain, something that is

1258
01:21:05,640 --> 01:21:07,640
quintessentially inactive and
agentic.

1259
01:21:07,840 --> 01:21:11,600
It's just agentic on the inside.
It's just mental action, action

1260
01:21:11,600 --> 01:21:13,320
on the inside.
If you're a psychologist, it

1261
01:21:13,320 --> 01:21:16,800
would be called attention if you
actually have to build, in the

1262
01:21:16,800 --> 01:21:19,960
spirit of Feynman, a machine
that has attention.

1263
01:21:20,000 --> 01:21:25,720
Hence my reference, possibly
disingenuous reference to

1264
01:21:25,720 --> 01:21:31,360
attention heads, but Mark is
referring exactly now to the the

1265
01:21:31,360 --> 01:21:37,920
kind, the precision that could
also that does the determines

1266
01:21:37,920 --> 01:21:41,120
what things are selected for
belief updating or committing to

1267
01:21:41,120 --> 01:21:44,840
a particular policy in exactly
the spirit that a psychologist

1268
01:21:45,080 --> 01:21:46,760
would think about attentional
selection.

1269
01:21:47,120 --> 01:21:50,400
So that gating, that
coordination, it's all action on

1270
01:21:50,400 --> 01:21:54,080
the inside, it's all acting and
it's all about palpating,

1271
01:21:54,120 --> 01:21:56,720
palpating the confidence, the
uncertainty.

1272
01:21:56,920 --> 01:21:59,920
And indeed, my one of my
favourite phrases from Mark is

1273
01:22:00,200 --> 01:22:03,520
felt uncertainty under eyes,
under eyes, quality of

1274
01:22:03,520 --> 01:22:06,640
experience, but it's an active
feeling.

1275
01:22:06,840 --> 01:22:10,000
So again, we come back to this,
this, and the final point is

1276
01:22:10,000 --> 01:22:14,320
that if you actually try to
simulate classical kinds of

1277
01:22:14,720 --> 01:22:20,000
either economics games or reward
learning games that evoke phasic

1278
01:22:20,000 --> 01:22:24,000
dopamine responses and transfer
from a condition to an

1279
01:22:24,000 --> 01:22:30,360
unconditioned stimulus, what you
see is that the brain's

1280
01:22:30,720 --> 01:22:37,000
evaluation of the precision of
the distribution of all the

1281
01:22:37,000 --> 01:22:41,080
policies I could take seems to
predict almost exactly

1282
01:22:41,080 --> 01:22:45,080
dopaminergic discharge.
And of course, that can go up or

1283
01:22:45,080 --> 01:22:47,520
it can go down.
So you've got failures for free

1284
01:22:47,920 --> 01:22:52,440
simply because the average of
the expected free energy just is

1285
01:22:52,440 --> 01:22:55,920
this entropy or neg entropy that
that mark is talking about.

1286
01:22:56,360 --> 01:22:58,680
Notice that there are lots of
other probability distributions,

1287
01:22:58,680 --> 01:23:02,760
you know, the state of the
world, beliefs in certain

1288
01:23:02,760 --> 01:23:05,520
contingencies or likely mappings
or transition dynamics.

1289
01:23:06,200 --> 01:23:09,720
But specific beliefs about what
I'm going to do next, beliefs

1290
01:23:09,720 --> 01:23:12,000
over policies or condition
probability, probability

1291
01:23:12,000 --> 01:23:14,560
distributions over policies,
they have an attribute of

1292
01:23:14,800 --> 01:23:17,920
precision.
And that seems to explain

1293
01:23:17,920 --> 01:23:23,160
exactly dopamine.
And it is the average expected

1294
01:23:23,160 --> 01:23:26,800
free energy.
So which can go up or down and,

1295
01:23:26,800 --> 01:23:28,360
and has sort of valence for
free.

1296
01:23:28,360 --> 01:23:30,480
So I think it's a beautiful
closure here.

1297
01:23:31,280 --> 01:23:35,440
You know, when you actually walk
the path that Mark is walking,

1298
01:23:36,320 --> 01:23:38,120
Mark is walking this path, I am
not.

1299
01:23:38,120 --> 01:23:40,400
So it's unlikely I'm going to
have any answers for him, but

1300
01:23:40,400 --> 01:23:42,120
I'd be very interested to hear
the questions.

1301
01:23:45,880 --> 01:23:49,360
Yeah, Mom, what's what's been
puzzling you guys the most,

1302
01:23:49,520 --> 01:23:52,920
would you say?
That that would take a very long

1303
01:23:52,920 --> 01:23:54,440
time.
There are many, many things.

1304
01:23:54,440 --> 01:23:58,040
The thing that's exercising me
the most and and I think we

1305
01:23:58,040 --> 01:24:01,600
might have time for me to ask
Carl a question in in this

1306
01:24:01,600 --> 01:24:04,120
direction.
It has to do with what I

1307
01:24:04,120 --> 01:24:07,800
mentioned earlier when I said I
think we need to draw up in

1308
01:24:07,800 --> 01:24:12,920
advance a list of functional and
behavioural criteria whereby

1309
01:24:13,520 --> 01:24:16,120
reasonably qualified
stakeholders, you know, can

1310
01:24:16,120 --> 01:24:19,120
reach a reasonable amount of
consensus about, you know, these

1311
01:24:19,120 --> 01:24:27,040
sorts of these sorts of tests.
If, if these boxes can be ticked

1312
01:24:27,600 --> 01:24:31,320
with sufficient number of them,
you know, then the weight of the

1313
01:24:31,320 --> 01:24:37,800
evidence is in favour of
inferring consciousness in such

1314
01:24:37,800 --> 01:24:42,960
an agent.
So we've been, I was at a

1315
01:24:42,960 --> 01:24:47,680
conference of all places in
Kathmandu a little while ago.

1316
01:24:48,000 --> 01:24:52,520
It was called that the focus was
not artificial consciousness,

1317
01:24:52,520 --> 01:24:55,840
but but, but non human
consciousness.

1318
01:24:55,840 --> 01:24:59,120
So there were, there were many
animal consciousness experts

1319
01:24:59,120 --> 01:25:02,320
there and artificial
consciousness people.

1320
01:25:02,320 --> 01:25:06,480
And we had a, a session in this
conference.

1321
01:25:06,760 --> 01:25:08,960
In fact, we broke up into little
groups and then we all came

1322
01:25:08,960 --> 01:25:13,640
together to give our the
outcomes of our discussions

1323
01:25:13,640 --> 01:25:19,360
where we were asked to agree
what were the tests for

1324
01:25:19,360 --> 01:25:23,600
consciousness that we found most
convincing, bearing in mind that

1325
01:25:23,600 --> 01:25:26,440
we're talking about tests which
have to be applicable both to

1326
01:25:26,720 --> 01:25:30,360
animals, non human animals and
and to artificial systems.

1327
01:25:30,880 --> 01:25:36,120
And the test that won the vote
as having the the highest

1328
01:25:36,120 --> 01:25:41,280
confidence of, of, of us experts
assembled in this conference was

1329
01:25:41,280 --> 01:25:44,960
something called the hedonic
place preference test.

1330
01:25:45,880 --> 01:25:51,080
So condition place preference
behaviour is what let's go back

1331
01:25:51,080 --> 01:25:53,320
to those zebra fish I was
talking about earlier.

1332
01:25:54,080 --> 01:25:57,440
They, they tend to hang out
where the food is delivered on

1333
01:25:57,440 --> 01:26:01,400
this side of the tank.
But if you then deliver on that

1334
01:26:01,400 --> 01:26:05,200
side of the tank as something
which does not have nutritional

1335
01:26:05,560 --> 01:26:10,920
value, but which does have
hedonic value, like since Carl's

1336
01:26:10,920 --> 01:26:16,520
speaking about dopamine, like
cocaine for example, then if

1337
01:26:16,560 --> 01:26:21,560
this, if these fish have
feelings, then you might get

1338
01:26:21,560 --> 01:26:23,800
them to prefer to hang out
there.

1339
01:26:23,960 --> 01:26:26,440
That you might predict that they
would prefer to hang out where

1340
01:26:26,440 --> 01:26:29,720
the cocaine is, even though it
has no nutritional value to

1341
01:26:29,720 --> 01:26:32,000
them, that it's only value is
hedonic.

1342
01:26:32,000 --> 01:26:33,840
In other words, it's felt it's
effective.

1343
01:26:35,400 --> 01:26:40,480
So the the the hedonic place
preference test is if the agent

1344
01:26:40,480 --> 01:26:45,960
shows that sort of behaviour,
then that's weighty evidence for

1345
01:26:45,960 --> 01:26:48,280
it having subjective feeling
states.

1346
01:26:48,720 --> 01:26:54,360
And the I want to just point
out, here's another thing that's

1347
01:26:54,360 --> 01:27:00,280
really been exercising my team
that to engineer a system that

1348
01:27:00,440 --> 01:27:04,000
that displays this sort of
behavior is not to engineer the

1349
01:27:04,000 --> 01:27:07,000
most efficient system.
It's to engineer a system which

1350
01:27:07,000 --> 01:27:10,160
can make mistakes, which can do
things which are not in its own

1351
01:27:10,160 --> 01:27:13,240
best interests, but it thinks or
feels that they are.

1352
01:27:14,000 --> 01:27:17,120
So you there, you have a gap
between the sort of hardwired,

1353
01:27:18,200 --> 01:27:21,520
forgive the phrase, you know,
the kind of RL type of thing,

1354
01:27:21,720 --> 01:27:24,360
and this feeling my way through
the problem.

1355
01:27:24,720 --> 01:27:28,000
And by the way, I have to add,
what Carl said is 100% true.

1356
01:27:28,000 --> 01:27:30,600
It's a verb.
It's pulpating your, your

1357
01:27:30,600 --> 01:27:33,480
uncertainty.
So one of the things that's

1358
01:27:33,480 --> 01:27:37,920
exercising us at the moment is
how do we engineer this kind of

1359
01:27:37,920 --> 01:27:43,040
functionality?
And it's, it's, it seems as if

1360
01:27:43,320 --> 01:27:47,880
it's, it's, it's certainly, it
is doable, but, but it's, I'd

1361
01:27:47,880 --> 01:27:51,440
love to before we close to hear
Carl's views about that, about

1362
01:27:51,440 --> 01:27:57,320
the both whether he thinks that
is a, a, a compelling test for,

1363
01:27:57,400 --> 01:28:03,040
for felt uncertainty and, or for
feelings and, and, and whether

1364
01:28:03,040 --> 01:28:08,800
he has any ideas about how one
would go about instantiating

1365
01:28:08,800 --> 01:28:12,360
this kind of distinction within
an artificial agent.

1366
01:28:16,520 --> 01:28:19,520
We've run out of time, but I
can't resist this noting.

1367
01:28:19,760 --> 01:28:23,840
So your, your solution then is
basically to ensure that we can

1368
01:28:23,840 --> 01:28:25,800
make computers into drug
addicts.

1369
01:28:25,800 --> 01:28:29,400
And if we can do that
effectively and simulate all

1370
01:28:30,080 --> 01:28:33,240
the, the, the perverse pleasure
of possibly suffering.

1371
01:28:35,000 --> 01:28:36,600
That's a brilliant idea.
I haven't thought about it.

1372
01:28:36,600 --> 01:28:39,400
I thought you were going to say
the Salian test or some sort of

1373
01:28:39,400 --> 01:28:41,080
theory of mind or perspective
taking.

1374
01:28:41,080 --> 01:28:44,000
But making limited drug addicts
is exactly the right thing to

1375
01:28:44,000 --> 01:28:49,040
do.
And I should just say that you

1376
01:28:49,040 --> 01:28:53,280
know that both Mark and I are
involved in a number of

1377
01:28:53,280 --> 01:28:56,280
institutions and and bodies who
are really trying to drill down

1378
01:28:56,280 --> 01:28:59,040
on this for the common good,
including the consume

1379
01:28:59,440 --> 01:29:03,880
organization and also the
California Institute for Machine

1380
01:29:03,880 --> 01:29:06,200
Consciousness are really
desperately trying to understand

1381
01:29:06,200 --> 01:29:08,640
these issues.
So some of the things that Mark

1382
01:29:08,640 --> 01:29:13,240
has said and I have said are
resonating with and probably

1383
01:29:13,240 --> 01:29:16,160
mimicking some of the
discussions that that are that

1384
01:29:16,160 --> 01:29:20,480
are that are ongoing with, with
a, a wide group of people, you

1385
01:29:20,480 --> 01:29:22,760
know.
So I just wanted to acknowledge

1386
01:29:22,760 --> 01:29:27,240
other sources of sort of or
perspectives on this issue and

1387
01:29:27,240 --> 01:29:30,240
why it's such an important issue
from, from, from many

1388
01:29:30,240 --> 01:29:32,840
perspectives, how you
instantiate it.

1389
01:29:32,840 --> 01:29:36,560
I think it's quite simple, you
know, and I'm sure Mark has

1390
01:29:36,560 --> 01:29:39,680
actually done this.
It's just basically to make sure

1391
01:29:39,680 --> 01:29:43,040
that you have as part of your
functional architecture, the

1392
01:29:43,280 --> 01:29:47,360
ability to palpate or to feel
your uncertainty, and that

1393
01:29:47,360 --> 01:29:50,840
necessarily introduces a certain
kind of hierarchical or

1394
01:29:50,840 --> 01:29:53,400
parametric depth to your
generative models.

1395
01:29:53,600 --> 01:29:56,560
It is unremarkable from the
point of view of statistician

1396
01:29:56,840 --> 01:30:00,840
because the whole point of
statistics is to estimate your

1397
01:30:02,040 --> 01:30:04,520
your felt uncertainty in the
form of standard error.

1398
01:30:04,720 --> 01:30:08,280
So people like Fisher and Box,
the whole of parametric

1399
01:30:08,280 --> 01:30:13,800
statistics was just invented to
get a feel for or a handle on

1400
01:30:14,000 --> 01:30:16,720
the uncertainty when making an
inference.

1401
01:30:17,040 --> 01:30:19,800
So yeah, the maths is there.
It is a question of putting that

1402
01:30:19,800 --> 01:30:24,720
into a computer architecture.
I think perhaps the tension

1403
01:30:24,720 --> 01:30:27,840
heads are baby steps in that
direction, but that's not good

1404
01:30:27,840 --> 01:30:30,040
enough.
Just having the mechanism to

1405
01:30:30,360 --> 01:30:36,320
exert the products of your felt
uncertainty does not actually

1406
01:30:36,520 --> 01:30:39,680
prescribe way, way, you know,
the actions of actually

1407
01:30:39,680 --> 01:30:42,360
estimating the standard error or
the uncertainty.

1408
01:30:42,600 --> 01:30:46,360
But, you know, in principle we
know, we know how to do that.

1409
01:30:46,400 --> 01:30:50,000
As a statistician, all Mark has
to do now is to build it into a

1410
01:30:51,160 --> 01:30:53,760
in in the spirit of Fineman.
Make one, and then he'll

1411
01:30:53,760 --> 01:30:57,520
understand it.
Well, gentlemen, this, this was

1412
01:30:57,520 --> 01:30:59,720
absolutely amazing.
Thank you so much.

1413
01:30:59,720 --> 01:31:01,440
It's truly an honor and
privilege to have you both

1414
01:31:01,440 --> 01:31:03,720
chatting together and I hope you
had a great time.

1415
01:31:03,720 --> 01:31:05,600
And it was an absolutely great
discussion.

1416
01:31:07,360 --> 01:31:09,920
Thank you for having us, Tevin,
and thank you, Carl.

1417
01:31:10,160 --> 01:31:13,240
It's always an enormous pleasure
to interact with you.

1418
01:31:13,920 --> 01:31:15,840
And I always learn something
new.

1419
01:31:16,000 --> 01:31:19,760
But this, this topic is the
closest to my heart at the

1420
01:31:19,760 --> 01:31:21,840
moment.
And so it's, it's, it's, it's

1421
01:31:21,840 --> 01:31:25,480
really enjoyable to be able to
engage with the, with the, with

1422
01:31:25,480 --> 01:31:29,320
the mind like, like Carl's and
to have a host like you, Tevin.

1423
01:31:30,360 --> 01:31:33,720
I, I want to under score in
closing, one thing that Carl

1424
01:31:33,720 --> 01:31:37,360
just said, which was which it
was in what he said.

1425
01:31:37,360 --> 01:31:42,120
But again, it needs, it needs
emphasis that we are working

1426
01:31:42,240 --> 01:31:45,720
both he and I together with
organizations who are concerned

1427
01:31:45,760 --> 01:31:50,920
about the ethics of all of this.
And so we are not, or at least

1428
01:31:50,920 --> 01:31:55,200
I, since it's me that's at that
particular coalface, I want to

1429
01:31:55,200 --> 01:32:00,280
reassure our audience that we're
not going at this like Cowboys

1430
01:32:00,280 --> 01:32:02,720
and we're not going at it alone.
Thank you.

1431
01:32:04,840 --> 01:32:06,560
Thanks.
Can I, can I also say thank you

1432
01:32:06,560 --> 01:32:08,200
before you all go away?
Thank you very much.

1433
01:32:08,200 --> 01:32:10,480
I really enjoyed that.
Until next time.

1434
01:32:12,720 --> 01:32:13,920
Cheers guys.
Thank you so much.

1435
01:32:14,160 --> 01:32:14,880
Have a great.
Thank you.

1436
01:32:15,120 --> 01:32:15,840
Thank you.
Bye.

1437
01:32:15,880 --> 01:32:17,160
Bye.
Bye.