Dozenal Tauist
1 HN recommender · recommended in 3 months, 2017–2023
1:57 · 1.7M views · Nov 21, 2016
A two-minute Westworld scene in which Robert Ford and Bernard Lowe discuss whether consciousness exists. Ford argues that the self is a fiction for hosts and humans alike.
HN uses it in AI and consciousness debates as a memorable take on why general intelligence is hard to define.
3 comments from Hacker News
I think honestly think westworld (yes the tv-series) has the best explanation of why general intelligence is a hard problem to solve. They mention consciousness but I think the same apply to intelligence in general. Humans in my mind aren't different from say a program you write except that we have a lot more input and possible outputs depending on a much larger variant of external variables. If we could build machines that have eyesight just as we do, muscles just as we do etc I'm sure we could reverse-engineer the human being. this video
The Westworld TV show from a few years ago gave an interesting perspective - this video Bernard: “Life like, but not alive? Pain only exists in the mind. It’s always imagined. So what’s the difference between my pain and yours, between you and me?” Ford: “This was the very question that consumed Arnold. Filled him with guilt. Eventually drove him mad. The answer always seemed obvious to me. There is no threshold that makes us greater than the sum of our parts. No inflection point in which we become fully alive. We can’t define consciousness because consciousness does not exist. Humans fancy that there’s something special about the way we perceive the world, and yet we live in loops as tight and as closed as the hosts do. Seldom questioning our choices, content, for the most part, to be told what to do next. No my friend, you’re not missing anything at all."
"The self is a kind of fiction, for hosts and humans alike. It's a story we tell ourselves... there is no threshold that makes us greater than the sum of our parts, no inflection point at which we become fully alive." -- Dr. Ford, Westworld (video contains spoilers) this video