The Construction of Light

"And if a bird can speak, who once was a dinosaur
And a dog can dream; should it be implausible
That a man might supervise
The construction of light?"
                                       – Adrian Belew

Yesterday I gave a keynote lecture at Beyond AI 2013:  Aritficial Golem Intelligence, in Pilsen, Czech Republic.  As I explained at the beginning of the talk, I adopted a broadcast (many topics covered lightly), rather than my usual narrowcast (a single topic covered in depth, with arguments!), strategy.

My apologies for the sound:  there were technical difficulties with the microphones at several points.

Abstract:
Approaching artificial general intelligence (AGI) from the perspective of machine consciousness (MC), I will briefly address as many of the topic areas of the conference as possible within the time allotted:

• The mind is extended, but Otto's beliefs are not in his notebook; Prosthetic AI vs AGI (Nature of Intelligence)
• Scepticism about MC and the threat of atrocity (Risks and Ethical Challenges)
• Theodicy, the paradox of AI, and the Imago Dei; Naturalising the Spiritual (Faith in AGI)
• Narrative, dreams and MC; Herbert's Destination Void as research programme (Social and Cultural Discourse)
• How to fix GOFAI; the Mereological Constraint on MC (Invoking Emergence)
• Artificial creativity as embodied seeking of the subjective edge of chaos (AI and Art)

Media:
• Streaming video (hosted externally)
• Slides (.pdf)