#32 – Subjectivity, Qualitative States, and Conscious Machines with Dr. Matt McCormick
In Algo Podcast Episode 32, Dr. Matt McCormick and Amjad Hussain discuss Subjectivity, Qualitative States, and Conscious Machines.
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0:00 Episode Preview
0:25 Introduction
2:32 Qualitative states & The Hard Problem
5:21 Chalmers’ Marketing Genius
8:13 Difference between qualia and valence
12:09 Evolution of Consciousness
14:38 Why build a conscious machine with qualitative states?
17:01 Supply Chain Solutions
17:58 Global Workspace Theory Preliminaries
21:26 Sensory input & consciousness
26:28 Parallel Distributive Processing & Global Workspace
28:36 Tracking neural activity: Global Workspace
31:18 Global Availability
32:42 A lot of processing is unconscious
37:04 What’s Consciousness For?
42:07 Which Cognitive Processes Get Connected by the Global Workspace?
42:47 Why qualitative states in consciousness?
49:17 The Hard Problem?
56:38 The evolution of consciousness
59:22 Building a Cognitive Agent
1:06:49 How to represent qualitative states
1:14:02 Conscious AI with qualitative states?
1:15:30 Chalmers’ Zombie Argument
1:20:52 Donald Hoffman
1:23:06 Moral Considerations, Pain & Suffering
1:31:13 Closing Thoughts
About the host
Amjad Hussain
Amjad Hussain is an entrepreneur at heart. He founded Algo where he is the CEO during the day and AI lego blocks designer at night. He has built an intrinsically motivated global team of deep business domain experts, AI architects, computer scientists and software engineers. Algo is an always on full stack platform with deep learning, augmented reality and workflow automation woven at its core. The platform has a conversational virtual business analyst persona as its primary user interface. The company is enjoying sustainable growth creating tremendous net new value for its customers world-wide.
Amjad completed his Bachelors in Electrical Engineering with Honors from UET Lahore. He earned his Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science from UMIST, in the United Kingdom and an Advanced Analytics MBA from MIT. He has completed general management programs at Harvard and Stanford business schools. Amjad deeply cares about ethical issues surrounding AI and its societal impact.
