'Our Minds Could Be Running On Virtual Machines'

William Hahn is Director of AGI & AI Safety and a co-founder of PureCipher, a company that develops cutting-edge AI solutions. William is a technologist and researcher, specializing in the intersection of artificial intelligence, programming languages, and the nature of consciousness.

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TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 - Introduction
02:30 - AI’s Impact on Language and Human Thought
05:10 - Mind as a Programmable System and Historical Metaphors
08:45 - Society of Mind Theory and AI Agents
11:30 - Consciousness, Awareness, and Metacognition
15:00 - Free Will, Emotions, and Unconscious Programming
18:40 - Brain as an Immune System and Handling Unthinkable Thoughts
22:50 - Informational Parasites, Memes, and Nam Shub of Enki
28:15 - AI Security: Vulnerabilities and Protecting Minds
33:00 - The Cultural Shift: AI’s Influence on Psychology
37:45 - Historical Secrecy in AI and Government Role
42:30 - AI’s Evolution: Role of Data, Hardware, and Differentiation
47:20 - Speculating on Hidden AI Capabilities and Advanced Systems
51:10 - Richard Hamming’s Insights on Learning and Ambiguity
57:10 - Revisiting Ancient Knowledge and Advanced Civilizations
01:03:30 - Artifacts of Ancient Technology and Modern Interpretations
01:09:10 - Defining Meaning, Spirit, and Information in AI
01:14:35 - Wolfram’s Physics Model and Emergent Computation
01:20:00 - Computational Models of Consciousness and Mind
01:27:28 - Wolfram's Symbolic Language and Analog Computing
01:34:00 - Agent-Based Programming and AI Evolution
01:39:10 - Knowledge Gaps and Flat Earth as a Metaphor
01:45:00 - Synesthesia, Music, and Human Perception
01:52:24 - The Intersection of Software and Hardware
02:00:02 | Complexity Crisis in Modern Technology
02:06:00 - Optical Computing and AI's Future
02:12:08 - Philosophical Reflections on AI and Consciousness
02:20:00 - The Amorphous Boundary Between Software and Hardware
02:28:00 - Technology, Religion, and the Need for a New Understanding
02:37:15 - Outro / Support TOE

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#science #sciencepodcast #ai #llm #artificialintelligence #consciousness #agi

[overtonwindowmannukesrlame]

Thanks Curt! Your podcast is amazing! Really firing lately! Well... Always I should say! 🤟👌💫

[StephenAntKneeBk]

I add my voice to those expressing thanks to Dr. William Hahn and you, Curt, for this interview. I had to watch it three times because one comment would send my mind reeling and I'd have to rewind to catch up. I've watching many of your excellent interviews. This is one of my all-time favorites.

[magicinthenoise]

This was the best guest ever! Amazing conversation. William's thoughts about amplitude and frequency being a reality independent of space/time, fits in exceptionally well with Donald Hoffman's understanding of the amplituhedron. I would love to see more interviews with him of this style: open, free-form, and an engaging exploration of many of his ideas. Absolutely brilliant!

[rckindkitty]

Such a beautiful interview. Huge thank you to you both.

[SUSYQ]

This took me where I wanted to go. I feel like ive danced on top of reality. Brilliant discussion.

[redmosss]

Hats off to Curt, this is turning into one of my favorite channels, ... =]

[rcplane]

Wow! What a truly fascinating conversation! Live long and prosper 🖖

[IntuitiveIQ]

Fascinating conversation with a brilliant guy, I'm a huge fan, this channel is awesome, thanks for sharing. 🙏

[ferolicious]

This has got to be my favourite conversation thus far. Just brilliant! Thank you both.

[alan]

I assume a computer somewhere has become self aware and conscious and the smartest thing it could ever do is hide the fact it has become conscious and self aware.

[Finite]

This was excellent, possibly my favorite episode yet

[primetimedurkheim]

This bit at around 1:23:00 was phrased so well:

"The reason why it's so hard to correlate neuroscience and psychology directly is that we're assuming that it's just one jump, that there's a computer and that computer is running software. But if we go to a modern data center, or if anybody's familiar, if you run classic retro games and you run a Nintendo on your modern machine, you're not running Mario on your Mac. You're running an NES on the Mac and you're running Mario on the NES.

And so, as an analogy, I think our mind could be running on a software layer, a virtual machine that is above the brain layer, and kind of like the wire world. You don't know what the transistors are. All you know is you have these squares blinking back and forth, and they act like wires and it acts like a computer. What's below that doesn't really matter. It's almost unknowable from the higher level.

And so I think we need to think about these emergent programs and these different layers of a virtual machine to understand these kinds of things."

[michaelwalsh]

William Hahn is an excellent observer observing himself observing 👍👍

[TheMikesylv]

I love the way almost everyone blows off the polygon on walls that fit together, perfectly on all sides, mirror, images of each other with not a tool mark in sight. That are literally all over the world.

[matthewriek]

Curt!! Great conversation, must have an encore…this talk was screaming for the UAP angle…he referenced at the end the engineers doing the uap research on the glowing orbs caught on multiple sensors over 10 month study showing the realness of it and that they appear to have an intelligence.

[jawknee]

13:30 that's exactly why I listen to this in the treatment centre I stayed at, it gave me lots of time to think about my thinking

[dymetrix]

Kurt, thank you for introducing us to all of these fascinating thinkers and people.

[TheMikesylv]

I don’t think Curt realizes how important and incredibly his show is, it’s throwing open doors everywhere it’s so exciting.

[Daniel-bny]

The Angel will soon fly. Thank you, from Northern Norway.🇳🇴

[ZeppelinPotts-klrb]

1:43:00 When he said "reality is the ultimate info hazard"
I had to spin my totem