Event overview
Whitehead Lecture: Chrisantha Fernando on The Struggle for Mutual Awareness (or What it's like to be a Thermostat)
Researcher Chrisantha Fernando (Google DeepMind) will discuss The Struggle for Mutual Awareness (or What it's like to be a Thermostat)
Abstract:
Existing machine learning systems lack an intrinsic motivation to establish mutual awareness — both with humans and with other ML systems. It is this drive toward mutual awareness that led to the development of external representation – based “consciousness technologies” over hundreds of thousands of years of cultural evolution, e.g. art, mythology, science. We contend that AGI will not be possible without this intrinsic motivation, and that current, largely ad hoc efforts to improve large language models are converging on this realization. We need to integrate systems that both possess raw experiential capacities and can learn to utilize and create external representations for achieving mutual awareness, i.e. to struggle to understand us and to be understood by us. We contend that such integration is essential for AGI, autonomous creativity, and full engagement with our conscious community of beings.
Bio:
Dr. Chrisantha Fernando was originally a medical doctor, before doing the EASY course at Sussex in evolutionary and adaptive systems. He then did a PhD on the origin of life with Eors Szathmary, and worked on Darwinian Neurodynamics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Budapest. 11 Years ago he joined DeepMind. He now works on the nature of external representations which we make to co-create consciousness between ourselves. The diagram shows a set of triangles constructed about 70000 years ago. He would like to understand how AI systems can engage in such a process of "creative thinging".
Event series:
This event is part of the Whitehead Lectures in Cognition, Computation and Culture
Whitehead Lectures in Cognition, Computation and Culture
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 22 Jan 2025 |
4:00pm - 5:00pm Everyone is welcome |
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