Ben Goertzel, PhD, is author of many books on artificial intelligence including Ten Years to the Singularity if We Really Really Try; Engineering General Intelligence, Vols. 1 and 2; The Hidden Pattern: A Patternist Philosophy of Mind; and The Path to Posthumanity. He is also editor (with Damien Broderick) of an anthology about parapsychology titled, Evidence for Psi: Thirteen Empirical Research Reports. He is chief scientific officer for Hanson Robotics in Hong Kong.

Here he points out that, while the question of consciousness in robots is problematic, there are similar problems when exploring the question of consciousness in humans. He postulates that AI machines will develop some forms of awareness; and suggests thought experiments involving plugging the human brain directly into computers. He discusses credible research on extrasensory perception and suggests that people working in artificial intelligence and cognitive science will need to confront this data. He then speculates about the prospects for telepathic robots.

(Recorded on April 29, 2016)

Published on May 1, 2016