Anil Seth

And this means that what they do is unlikely to be a matter of computation, of algorithm alone.

Look closely at a brain, at any brain, and it becomes less and less plausible that all that's going on is just turning some numbers into other numbers in this endless dance of zeros and ones.

Yes, there are neural circuits which exchange signals and may do computation or at least something like it, but there's so much else that escapes the confines of the digital.

Neurotransmitter chemicals course through the brain circuitry.

Electromagnetic fields sweep through the cortex like weather systems.

Even a single neuron is such a beautiful biological machine, a far cry from the simplified cartoon-like neurons that power today's AI.

The brain is not, or at least not just a computer made of meat.

And so consciousness is very unlikely to be a matter of computation alone.

And if this is true, then conscious AI is off the table, at least for AI as we know it today.

Let me put it another way.

What if we simulated every last detail about the brain in some massive supercomputer?

Now, if the fine details of the brain do matter for consciousness, well, wouldn't this be enough for consciousness to happen inside a machine?

Well, a computer simulation of a hurricane does not create real wind,

A computer simulation of a black hole doesn't suck the earth into its algorithmic singularity.

Making these simulations more detailed can make them more useful, but it does not make them any more real.

We can have a simulation of the brain, and you can make it as detailed as you want.

This might make it more useful, but it's not going to make it any more conscious.

Now, consciousness, it has to be said, does remain a bit mysterious, but perhaps one reason for this is that we've been so constrained by our metaphors, by the idea that it just has to be some kind of information processing.

After all, if you think the brain literally is a computer, then what else could it really be?

But once we see the brain more clearly for what it really is, many new possibilities arise.