Joscha Bach: Artificial Consciousness and the Nature of Reality [video]
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* Computational Meta-Intelligence (32C3): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRdJCFEqFTU
* Machine Dreams (33C3): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5nJ5l6dl2s
* The Ghost in the Machine (35C3): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3K5UxWRRuY&t=2516s
He also did a very interesting podcast episode with Fefe and Frank from alternativlos! (in German): https://alternativlos.org/42/
His talks are always a firehose of fresh ideas and new combinations of known concepts.
All of his previous talks can be found at
Depending on what interests you, maybe also look at the abstracts of his research papers?
Anyway, the way Joscha explained various concepts was very interesting - the phrases he used kept me hooked. At the very least it's entertaining.
For example:
"Social media is the world's brain hooked on dopamine - creating a permanent seizure"
"Entropic Abyss"
"Closed Cooling Chain"
Interesting guy with an interesting upbringing (grew up in Eastern Germany - his site http://bach.ai).
It's a long interview - but here is the breakdown of topics being discussed (time stamps taken from the comments section)
0:00 - Introduction
3:14 - Reverse engineering Joscha Bach
10:38 - Nature of truth
18:47 - Original thinking
23:14 - Sentience vs intelligence
31:45 - Mind vs Reality
46:51 - Hard problem of consciousness
51:09 - Connection between the mind and the universe
56:29 - What is consciousness
1:02:32 - Language and concepts
1:09:02 - Meta-learning
1:16:35 - Spirit
1:18:10 - Our civilization may not exist for long
1:37:48 - Twitter and social media
1:44:52 - What systems of government might work well?
1:47:12 - The way out of self-destruction with AI
1:55:18 - AI simulating humans to understand its own nature
2:04:32 - Reinforcement learning
2:09:12 - Commonsense reasoning
2:15:47 - Would AGI need to have a body?
2:22:34 - Neuralink
2:27:01 - Reasoning at the scale of neurons and societies
2:37:16 - Role of emotion
2:48:03 - Happiness is a cookie that your brain bakes for itself
EDIT: clarity
"Social media is the world's brain hooked on dopamine - creating a permanent seizure"
Wow, what an insightful statement! Except it isn't. It's not even a statement. It's just different metaphors piled on top of each other until they nothing at all anymore.
"Entropic Abyss"
Lex Fridman actually asked for clarification here, but none came. Joscha fixed the mispronunciation, that's all. The phrase is completely meaningless.
"Closed Cooling Chain"
And that one is a bad translation from German "geschlossene Kuehlkette", meaning that your convenience food is frozen once at the factory and never warms up until it's in your microwave oven. It translates to "uninterrupted", not "closed".
I'm pretty disappointed by the onslaught of empty phrases and the dearth of insight or arguments.
The mental image triggered by that sentence is funny and there is some truth to it.
> "Entropic Abyss" ... The phrase is completely meaningless.
Well, it wasn't meaningless to the interviewer - he actually found it poetic.
And for me it triggered an interesting mental image.
> bad translation from German... It translates to "uninterrupted", not "closed".
I just looked up the words. 'Geschlossene' comes from schliessen, which means to close.
Uninterrupted in German seems to be 'ununterbrochen'.
So Closed Cooling Chain actually seems to be a good translation and it nicely rolls off the tongue - CCC.
> I'm pretty disappointed by the onslaught of empty phrases and the dearth of insight or arguments.
I realized some might not get much out of it - hence why I said that at the very least Joscha is entertaining to listen to (subjective - I know).
I got something out of it - what Joscha says makes me think - even if at the end I won't get enlightened, I look forward to check out his other work.
Sure, but funny isn't insightful.
> I just looked up the words.
Words from one language don't map perfectly to those of another; idioms map even less well. Are you seriously trying to lecture me about idioms in my native tongue, German? Which happens to be Joscha's native tongue, too, which is probably the reason why some of his phrases sound insightful to you and like bad translations to me. Another example:
"A spirit is an operating system a brain runs on."
Apparently he tried to translate German "Geist", which could be "spirit", "ghost", or "mind". The appropriate translation is "mind", then it makes sense. The mistranslation to "spirit" makes it sound profound, unless you take the time to think about it. But you can't, because Joscha talks so fast.
Is that an established and commonly understood fact?
To me anything that provides some understanding to a complicated matter or situation can be insightful - even funny things.
What isn't insightful to you might be insightful to others. Don't forget not everyone is at the same level of understanding.
> Closed Cooling Chain vs Uninterrupted Cooling Chain
When he says 'Closed' - it implies that it's uninterrupted. Have you ever heard of the term 'Closed Circuit'? Same thing.
I prefer his translation. It's simpler and sounds better (to me).
> Apparently he tried to translate German "Geist", which could be "spirit", "ghost", or "mind"
Interesting. Did he use 'Geist' originally in his German presentation?
If he meant mind - why didn't he use the German word 'Verstand' - which seems to be a more accurate translation for mind. But you tell me, as this is your native tongue.
Maybe he wants to add some colour to his talks?
If so, then I think spirit is totally fine to me. It doesn't make it sound anymore profound. I would say it makes it more interesting. And maybe the other reason why he used the word spirit and not mind, might be to cater to a certain audience, e.g. the viewers for the chaos computer club videos might appreciate sci-fi like Ghost in the Shell. You wouldn't say Mind in the Shell. Sounds dry and boring (to me). But spirit has a more positive connotation vs Ghost - another reason why he might have chosen that word in the quote you mentioned.
Joscha seems to have a knack for this - explaining things in a simple, interesting and entertaining way. Just look at all the comments on the various videos he appears in.
You might already have a deep understanding of the topics he talks about, but not everyone has.
Of course I've heard of it! Very much not the same thing. The cooling chain is open at both ends. It isn't closed like a circuit, it is still called "geschlossen", which is exactly why I'm trying to tell you it's a mistranslation and "uninterrupted" conveys the actual meaning much better.
> why didn't he use the German word 'Verstand'
To sound "spiritual", literally, so he can connect with religious nutters instead of just nerds. What do I know of his motivations?
On one hand it's over-ambitious and doomed to fail, and yet it could lead to more coherent and constructive hive mind.
Yeah, that sounds like trying to evolve even more addicting social networks. Those networks which are more rewarding will have more users, regardless if they are good or bad in long term.
"everything that we sense is part of the same object ... we learn it all into one model ... we call this model the universe" https://youtu.be/P-2P3MSZrBM?t=1796
The podcast host, either he has a way of speaking that seems affectedly slow, or maybe he has a speech impediment or neurological issue? Ordinarily I would just set the speed of the video up, but Bach's normal speed of speech becomes too fast. A few minutes in, the host seems to adapt to his guests speed a bit, but is there some kind of trend among millennials to do some weird slo-mo lazy talking pace? Bach seems to sense it as well and interrupts him when he starts to wind up his mental drone.
From first hand experience as a person who grew up in a household with two completely different languages, this seems to come from having trouble of finding the right language to speak in for a little time until I can finally settle in on a language which makes most sense.
This or something absolutely different.
Lex is just trying to come up with worthy follow-up questions that also sometimes align with his plan for the podcast. And his default is to speak carefully because he knows that the topics are complex and algorithms are transcribing them etc. So he is starting at a fairly slow normal just for clarity and the high level of Bach's comments requires him to think more.
I would bet that you would not be able to do better. Actually I bet that you would pause just as long and then often reply with something barely relevant to what was just said, such as "wow that was deep".
Seriously, you think that Bach hasn't spent years preparing that elegant information and philosophy? And Lex was trying to adapt on the fly. But you casually suggest that you could have a rapid-fire intelligent back-and-forth with Joshua Bach as he lays that stuff on you.
I would like to see it. Go ahead, record a conversation with Bach on a topic that is slightly different from the existing podcasts/talks.
all of this is independent of how good of work lex does as an interviewer, which seems like it's pretty good given his ability to engage with the ideas presented (in this context idea empathy (ie understanding what Bach's saying) > interpersonal/conversational empathy).
My ideal first episode would have Bach and Daniel Dennett together talking about whether or not they have dogs, and what they might perceive that relationship to be like, given their respective views of consciousness and language, and what their dogs might think of them.
Although a lot of good stuff, some of his views are a bit perplexing:
* If his offspring would turn homosexual, he'd be sad about them being "evolutionary dead-end" (tho, he'd still support them in any way possible) - cannot find the tweet now, he probably deleted it
* He expresses a dim view of US' future (its institutions) esp. in the light of current events. It's sometimes visible in his tweets and speeches. But he's so vague in his predictions, that 10 years down the road I wouldn't be able to tell if he have been right or wrong no matter what the situation will be
tangent point: the company he currently works for - AI Foundation - had some deal/interaction with our dear Deepak Chopra - who is as anti-intellectual as a public persona can be - so my question is 'why' - tho this could be before Joscha's tenure there... but still it feels bad (https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20191205005164/en/Dee...) (https://aifoundation.com/author/lars_butler/)
But he loves Stanislaw Lem, and according to the interview he was the first author that he felt was worth reading his books had profound impact on him when he was young, so that's nice, b/c Lem is a genius - who is also a bit underrated in the western world - as opposed to the former eastern block :)
Since Joscha says that being adult means taking control of your emotions (I guess, to a point), so they serve your goals, and you're not at their whim, I wonder why he succumbs so easily to this specific emotion. Since having offspring has nothing to do with goals of his neural system (say... discovering the nature, advancing knowledge, exchanging ideas).
Goals of your genes != goals of your neural system (brain), and for the purpose of this conversation you are for me the latter.
Following your emotions regarding kids, helping them to raise and become good people, feeling fulfilled doing it, I can't see anything wrong with that. You could even see kids as advancing the knowledge through them. And if you feel that way about your kids, I can also see why someone would be sad not having grand children.
I wouldn't even call this sadness to be mainstream, because I think quite a few people don't allow themselves to feel that way or even condemn themselves. So it's quite honest to be open about such a sadness and shows a good understanding of yourself.
You can have feelings without acting on them, but just perceive them. When Joscha talks about controlling your emotions this certainly would go into this direction.
I don't think being sad about reproduction choices of your children is beneficial, therefore I'd also suggest dealing with it. In the end it's just influence of your genes saying 'go, do something, talk to them, we need to be replicated'
Feeling sad about something, doesn't mean you're sad about it all the time, that's suffering. You just can't control every emotion in you and there's also no need for it, it's just part of being human. Trying to control every emotion is certainly more harmful than accepting them.
> In the end it's just influence of your genes saying 'go, do something, talk to them, we need to be replicated'
Do you really think that why Joscha works in AI and his desire to expand the knowledge has nothing to do with his genes?
What would be the primary reason for the proponents of the POV 'being sad about your grandchildren being gay b/c cessation of own genetic lineage isn't the best of approaches' being downvoted (like my every entry, and most others)?
I believe it's an interesting conversation, and both side of it exchanged some interesting ideas debating in good faith, being reasonably calm and avoiding common fallacies, so I suspect some factors that are not obvious to me, like maybe the interlocutors are worrying that even discussing such topic might be a danger to their future rights of having offspring it all, or somesuch similar (just a guess, probably not even close to the real reason)?
I'm trying to figure out what I'm being told, since downvotes don't come with comments/reasoning.
And from a pure short sentence, you can't read anything out of it.
Raising a kid is a meaningful experience, but the kids haircolor doesn't matter much.
Just because our desire for chocolate is a primal evolutionary imperative, doesn't mean that it's wrong to develop an attachment to it. Why is it ok to express sadness over missing out on physical pleasures, but not psychological pleasures.
The actual comparison would be for me to express sadness about the fact that I cannot pass on my desire for chocolate to the next generation, which to be honest I couldn't care less about.
If he feels sad about them not having children, which is not really something a parent has a say in.
I think that's a maladaptive way to think about this. Attaching value and emotion to the long term fate of your particular genes is odd, given that they are almost completely identical to everyone else's. Whats the point in feeling sadness about this?
And evolution isn't a game. It doesn't have a point, or an outcome. It's just what happens when you have replicators in a free energy medium. Genes don't win or lose, they just make copies of themselves. It's nothing to do with _us_. Its just biochemistry.
It's by definition very pro-adaptive. Many if not most of our emotions and behavior is merely in service to passing on our genes (at some higher-order analysis), which you seem to claim is pointless. If being concerned about your lineage is pointless, so is everything else you presumably have no objection to, e.g. feeling sadness from being rejected by a romantic interest.
>And evolution isn't a game.
I'm sure you've heard of a metaphor before.
Do you really believe this argument? It seems like a strange one to make. Our genes are almost entirely identical, so why worry about diversity, then?
Besides, people like you will, all else being equal, surely get outbred by people who do care about their progeny. So why worry? The tendency to hold your point of view will wipe itself out...
That could be true (though, atheism is on the rise, despite religious people having more children than non-believers on avg). But it's also orthogonal to the question at hand. Existence or non-existence of proponents of a given POV at a given point it time doesn't say much about the validity of the POV itself.
But if I had the chance to pick my own values, I wouldn't want to have ones that were antimemetic.
Of course I'm concerned about that. Lack of diversity and the discrimination that goes with it causes real harm to real people.
> Besides, people like you will, all else being equal, surely get outbred by people who do care about their progeny. So why worry? The tendency to hold your point of view will wipe itself out...
So. Why should I care about that? If these people want to hold that view then that's up to them. What am I supposed to do: try to compete with them?
Whats the issue here?
But as for the 'mainstream', Joscha exactly doesn't want to be mainstream - see his TT stream: :)
"In a playground where most people can neither come up with ideas of their own.." and various other tweets and presos related to the harm of conforming to societal norms of thinking.
Sources: “The researcher Minsky had flagged for Epstein, Joscha Bach, declined repeated requests from me to discuss his ties to Epstein. But a 2018 paper on his theory of consciousness acknowledges support from the Jeffrey Epstein Foundation, and Bach has been listed in media tallies of Epstein grantees.” Science, At https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/09/what-kind-researcher...
“From 2014 to 2016, Bach’s primary affiliation was with MIT’s Media Lab. Harvard never paid Bach or provided funds to support his research, and no funds donated to Harvard supported Bach’s work. We understand that in 2014 and 2015, Bach’s work at MIT received fi- nancial support from Epstein.” (...)
“Though Harvard never paid Bach, PED’s website listed Bach as a PED research scientist beginning in 2014. We understand that Bach left MIT in 2016, but PED continued to list him as a PED research scientist until 2019. During that time, Nowak continued to give Bach access to office space at PED, which he used intermittently, and Bach often met with Epstein at PED when Epstein visited. PED has no records of Bach’s executing a Visitor Participation Agreement. Bach did not respond to our voice mail or email asking to speak with him, and we were unable to determine whether Epstein provided financial support to Bach after Bach left MIT and while he was associated with PED.”
REPORT CONCERNING JEFFREY E. EPSTEIN’S CONNECTIONS TO HARVARD UNIVERSITY. At https://ogc.harvard.edu/files/ogc/files/report_concerning_je...
“Epstein’s $100,000 donation in May 2013 was intended to be used at Ito’s discretion. His donations in November 2013 and in July and September 2014, totaling $300,000 (40% of Epstein’s post-conviction donations), were made to support research by Joscha Bach, a former Media Lab research fellow from Germany whom Epstein introduced to Ito in 2013. The Media Lab hired Bach in large part because Epstein subsidized the cost.“
* Bach declined to be interviewed in connection with Goodwin Procter’s fact-finding.
REPORT CONCERNING JEFFREY EPSTEIN’S INTERACTIONS WITH THE MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY. At http://factfindingjan2020.mit.edu/files/MIT-report.pdf?20011...
All these OpenAI spooks are either doing it intentionally or accidentally and at stake like this, what does it matter when the end result is a convincing loss.
Do you want facial recognition cameras on every street? That's what no ethics oversight gets you.
And is the research level the right place to stop that? I don't think so. That's a policy question.
New technology is like putting more weight on the gas pedal. Until we learn to handle the current problems, accelerating isn't a guaranteed solution. We may be able to swerve out of the oncoming problem, but now we're going event faster.
We now have technology that can end human civilization (aka "existential risk"). What is the harm in going slower? Especially compared to the harm of going faster.
You'd have to get all sides to agree on an actually effective treaty.
and yea we are speaking about consciousnesss OH MY HEAD...
That's too much for me, can't comment much... but keep doing I'm watching... and guess what it's fun! :D