How We Lost Our Minds

<p>How We Lost Our Minds is a tale of two spells. On the one hand, we mistook brains for persons. On the other, we mistook machines for mortals.</p><p></p><p>Can neural networks "know"? Are LLM chatbots conscious? Are humans "computers made of meat"? The answers are all here.</p><p></p><p>Above all, as we will see, AI is an artifact of mathematics. As such, AI itself bears witness to a world beyond bits and bytes, ones and zeros. It is the world of mind affirmed by the greatest mathematicians of all time.</p><p></p><p>Now, some 40 years after organizing a landmark Yale University conference on "Artificial Intelligence and the human mind" - with four Nobel Laureates and AI pioneers including Marvin Minsky of MIT, Doug Lenat of Stanford, and Hans Moravec of Carnegie-Mellon - author R.A. Varghese revisits the same newly relevant theme. With a focus on understanding, consciousness, and personhood in the context of neural networks, deep learning, large language models, world simulations, and intelligent agents, this book cuts through the hype to reveal what AI can and cannot do.</p><p></p><p>

R.A. Varghese is the winner of a Templeton Book Prize and the author of various books on consciousness, mind and AI including The Missing Link and Metaverse of Mind. His widely acclaimed work Cosmos, Bios, Theos featured contributions from 24 Nobel Prize winners. In 1986, Varghese organized a conference at Yale University on the theme "Artificial Intelligence and the human mind." Participants included four Nobel Laureates (among them neural network leader Leon Cooper) and pioneers of AI ranging from Marvin Minsky of MIT and Doug Lenat of Stanford to Hans Moravec of Carnegie-Mellon. Stanford's AI Magazine covered the conference ("A Report from the Battlefields of the Mind-Body Problem," Volume 8).