Raphaël Millière: The Vector Grounding Problem and Self-Consciousness

Raphaël Millière: The Vector Grounding Problem and Self-Consciousness

Author: Daniel Bashir August 4, 2023 Duration: 2:04:52

In episode 84 of The Gradient Podcast, Daniel Bashir speaks to Professor Raphaël Millière.

Professor Millière is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in the Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. Previously, he was the 2020 Robert A. Burt Presidential Scholar in Society and Neuroscience in Columbia University’s Center for Science and Society, and completed his DPhil in philosophy at the University of Oxford, where he focused on self-consciousness.

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Outline:

* (00:00) Intro

* (02:20) Prof. Millière’s background

* (08:07) AI + philosophy questions and the human side / empiricism

* (18:38) Putting aside metaphysical issues

* (20:28) Prof. Millière’s work on self-consciousness, does consciousness constitutively involve self-consciousness?

* (32:05) Relationship to recent pronouncements about AI sentience

* (41:54) Chatbots’ self-presentation as having a “self”

* (51:05) Intro to grounding and related concepts

* (1:00:06) The different types of grounding

* (1:08:48) Lexical representations and things in the world, distributional hypothesis, concepts in LLMs

* (1:21:40) Representational content and overcoming the vector grounding problem

* (1:32:01) Causal-informational relations and teleology

* (1:43:45) Levels of grounding, extralinguistic aspects of meaning

* (1:52:12) Future problems and ongoing projects

* (2:04:05) Outro

Links:

* Professor Millière’s homepage and Twitter

* Research

* Are There Degrees of Self-Consciousness?

* The Varieties of Selflessness

* Selfless Memories

* The Vector Grounding Problem



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Hosted by Daniel Bashir, The Gradient: Perspectives on AI moves beyond surface-level headlines to explore the intricate machinery and human ideas shaping artificial intelligence. Each episode is built on a foundation of deep research, leading to conversations that are both technically substantive and broadly accessible. You'll hear from researchers, engineers, and philosophers who are actively building and critiquing our technological future, discussing not just how AI systems work, but the larger implications of their integration into society. This isn't about speculative hype; it's a grounded examination of real progress, persistent challenges, and ethical considerations from those on the front lines. The discussions peel back layers on topics like model architecture, policy, and the fundamental science behind the algorithms becoming part of our daily lives. For anyone curious about the substance behind the buzz-whether you have a technical background or are simply keen to understand a defining technology of our age-this podcast offers a crucial and thoughtful resource. Tune in for a consistently detailed and nuanced take that treats artificial intelligence with the complexity it deserves.
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