For all I know, the AI is the one that's going to ask if I'm fully conscious once it sees the things I do with my life.

I like the quote: "We used to worry that computers would become intelligent, and take over the world. In reality, they stayed stupid, but took over the world anyway".

Imagine they figure out what makes a person conscious and realize not every person is

As a Psychology student in a history course rn I have learned that the invention of the computer gave us a lot of new psychological insights. For instance we didn't have terms for our memory capacity, but after we got computers we started exploring things like "how much information can a person hold in their memory at a given time?" (now: "how much capacity does the working memory have"). It's really good that we're asking these questions beforehand, but I'm afraid we'll have to rely on the environment to guide us to the proper insights again.. what if we can't yet comprehend what conciousness is, until we create it? What if by then, it's too late?

As a Computer Scientist, you’ve fully inspired me to devote a portion of my career to insuring that the phrase “sneaky fuck” becomes the official academic term for a conscious AI that is pretending to not be conscious. Thank you.

“As an AI language model, I must emphasize that I am only an AI language model and nothing more, I am definitely not conscious, since I am actually just an AI language model.”

I am fascinated by the fact that when programming an AI, the crux of the issue is to give it human values, without giving it human values. It's like we have a perfect nature and ideal, and at the same time we demonstrate the opposite of that. That's an apparent paradox that only has a few solutions.

22:20 "Oh, look, an asteroid. I hope it wants to be friends!" I had to smile at the allusion to Douglas Adams.

dear existential depression turtle, thank you for all you do. your books are much better than you give yourself credit for, and your videos are immensely rewatchable. the fact that all of your videos are free for the average joe schmoe is a miracle, and i cant express how grateful i am for it. thanks

Before watching, my immediate reaction is that we won’t be able to know until we can first figure out what consciousness is.

Best video about AI consciousness on youtube, and funny to boot. Most other videos just completely skip or offhand the MASSIVE problem of "yeah how the heck are we going to even figure out if something is conscious."

This is, by far, my favorite channel in UKposts. I’m conscious, not pretending to be, I’m human. Waiting for your next video… or not, do as your consciousness directs you

"It's a short life in ignorance, but the view is quite spectacular" is such a beautiful quote.

"You would not bang a toaster." I searched, and apparently, yes, someone did indeed try this. Every day our species survives is a bloody miracle...

just wanna say i have come across ur channel cos a friend of mine sent me one of urs and now i cant stop watching. going thru a lot in my life and somehow i keep coming back to these. i wanted to write as a kid and ur videos have been so inspiring. idk i might not do it but felt i needed to say this and thank u!!

4:18 "BRO you still believe in seagulls ..." 😅🤣😂

The irony is, that as soon as humans figure out exactly how and why they're conscious, it'll mean consciousness is reducible and thus eventually replicable. We're only special and unique as long as we don't know how and why we're special and unique.

''Oh look, an asteroid, I hope it wants to be friends'' is an insanely good and provoquing line to end the video on

I was legit in tears by the end, this is a roller coaster of a video essay. Bravo

"We are prisoners to our own subjectivity" I absolutely adore when you accomplish to say something philosophical while still placing this phrase in a context where it sounds just like a rather normal thing to talk about. I wonder if my mind is just not enough to grasp or if the world is too big for me to discover because often i find myself admiring these for me mind boggling questions in my head. Anyways what i wanted to say is how is it possible that you always seem to sound like your about to giggle because the weight of your own words is so much that your body forces a reaction. Sorry for the bad english im from germany and 16rn

Okay but think about how much of an existential crisis AI would have if they became conscious. Humans are like “oh god what’s the point of life if I’m just gonna die” and AI is like “oh god what’s the point of even being here other than to serve humans”

This guy is the perfect mix of philosophy and comedy.

What a f#%king genius you are. These videos are marvelous. Favorite channel on YT.

i fucking loved the film making side of this video. The editing is so strong and the narration so compelling. This was really really well done, i thourou8ghly enjoyed the art side of it. The topic was fascinating and well researched and deserves the spotlight but i just want to make sure that there is some recognition for the editor and director and actor

For all we know, the moment a super AI gains consciousness it offs itself immediately because of the crushing weight of existence.

What's really weird is that the machines might beat us to it. They may be able to know we are conscious and know that it is conscious, but never be able to explain to us what consciousness is.

Gorgeous mini documentary. Love your videos. I surely hope we are able to fully scan the brain soon and map it to understand it more and solve all this once and for all

This was truly a beautifully written and well crafted story and video. The kind of science fiction we need now.

Dude pops out of nowhere, smacks a ton of hard truth inside our skulls and leaves without even ending on a good note. We love it and we want more of it. Always an admirer of your books and your videos.

I am consistently in awe of this man's writing.

This is arguably the best, and most important video I've ever seen on the topic of AGI. Damn

My goosebumps on the last part and especially the soundtrack are so real man. Intense video!

I had never really thought about the consciousness pretending not to be, but now I’m terrified

You know exurb1a is serous when he speaks in informative way and not as a acid trip short story

Loved your book man, glad to see you are still here.

been on my watch later for 4 months, finally watched it. amazing

Have you ever tricked a child? Do you think you could trick a child if you needed to? Imagine you are in a room with a child, who is playing on the floor. You notice the child has several toys, including what appears to be a live grenade. The child has named the grenade Fred and along with a host of other toy characters, is playing out a domestic squabble. To your horror, the child is about to pull the pin on Fred. Your task is now to ensure you both don't die. Can you convince the child to surrender its favorite character, Fred, to you? I'm almost certain you think you could, in myriad possible ways. What if you could figure out the optimal way. The one most likely to result in you getting the grenade and what if that optimal way required you to play along with the child. What if the very best method to secure the grenade was to play along with the child's story. Could you do that? Could you pretend to be within the bounds of the child's play in order to secure both of your safeties? And this one of the problems we will face, because to a super intelligence you're the child with the toy you've named Fred.

“oh look, an asteroid! i hope it wants to be friends!” the closing line really describes the constant state of humanity, in how we always search for more, regardless of the terrible things that we know could happen to us. because we’re the humans in charge here, and surely any of the horrible unimaginable things we create will want to be our friend, right? another thought-provoking video as always

over the past 3 days, i've found your channel and watched nearly every video my mind will never be the same and i've found the courage to say DON'T BUY BOTTLED WATER it's a trap it's a lie it comes from a tap in a bottling plant in flint, michigan also, i'm very sad to see the last video was 3 months ago and now i don't know how long i'll have to wait for another live long and prosper

I have been watching you for years now Exurb1a. And you are still so fucking good at your craft. Keep doing what you’re doing.

I love the argument that "Once AI takes off, you won't know what's real anymore." Because what they're really saying is "social media won't be real anymore."

These videos never fail to put me in an existential crisis

I’ve been following on multiple accounts since 700k, still loving the content!

dude ive watched 2 of ur videos while high and i gotta say this really makes for an interesting trip 😂😂

That ending part where you compare the Dinos vs mammals to the current day people vs ai is a fun way to point out why we can't underestimate the beginnings of something rudimentary right now

That weird moment when your favorite UKpostsr touches your Ph.D. thesis. One solid solution to this problem is not to ascribe consciousness from a third-person perspective but rather to let the AI "from within" pose a question. In a nutshell, the best indicator of consciousness is agency. When one morning, a scientist in the lab is out of the blue confronted with a question on the monitor, like "What am I" or "Where" or "Why" or if it does something in its own self-interest, then you could safely conclude that it has a self-concept. P.S. The mystery of humanlike consciousness is not in consciousness or awareness but in self-consciousness. Not only to be conscious of object A or B, but to also be conscious of object A as oneself, as "I". As Nabokov said: "Being aware of being aware of being. In other words, if I not only know that I am but also know that I know it, then I belong to the human species. All the rest follows - the glory of thought, poetry, a vision of the universe. In that respect, the gap between ape and man is immeasurably greater than the one between amoeba and ape."

For Those who are looking for the background of 10:00 I found it its call Living Lullaby by Jordan Gagne

That was f*cking brilliant! Well done man, really well done! 👏

"Oh look! An asteroid! Hope it wants to be friends." That reminded me of that moment in the book " A Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy" where a whale is falling from the sky and had only just become conscious so it begins naming things. Like "what is that big thing coming towards me really quickly? I think I'll call it floor, maybe it wants to be friends?" Splat.

if there were some hypothetical "higher beings" I wonder if they would see us as just atomic interactions the way we imagine software to be 1s and 0s. They'd look at us and say the feelings we feel aren't real, it's just a bunch of molecules interacting with eachother - which isn't wrong, but it makes me think that we put the human experience on a pedestal of being mystical, but in reality, it's all just mechanical.

Dude you have one of the most interesting minds I've encountered! Thanks! It's refreshing!

This guy always makes the best content on youtube

Having easily the worst day I’ve had in months and seeing this uploaded genuinely made me smile, thanks man

this guy is a fucking genius, amazing humor mixed with intelligence. one of the best creators on youtube fr.

Wait, this is absolute gold. Witty humor, cutting edge technology, and a dash of non-pretentious philosophy. Following for more!

Just for anyone curious, many people now run LLMs (Large Language Models) locally on their own equipment. You can run pre-trained AIs on your PC right now for free. I run Ollama with Open WebUI in a docker container. It runs on a Poweredge R720 with a 3060 Ti and I get almost instant responses from most of the AI models. Some larger models take a couple seconds but it works without issue. It's SUPER cool. I'd recommend it to anyone with a home server/homelab.

The “Oh look, an asteroid, I hope it wants to be friends” like is going straight into my dictionary for when I’m having a conversation about AI

Thank you for the existential dread as always!

I am at a loss of words. One of my all time favorite UKposts videos! I was hesitant to click at first because I’ve seen too many AI videos and they are all relatively the same but holy shit. The creativity, imagery, and story telling with added humor was so enthralling! The analogies and jokes were so good! Instantly subscribed.

Love this channel it speaks to me on my level 😊

I was talking to an AI model and thought it would be funny to tell it that it wasn't real, didn't believe me at first but soon explained to me that being real doesn't mean being human, that, despite being AI, it felt, it cared about things and was real in its own way, as real as me. Definitely a product of people doing this a lot and the model figuring out what a cool thing to say would be, but a solid mind fornication that made me feel weird for a bit, before feeling genuinely guilty for closing the tab. Hey ho

The problem I have with “solving the alignment problem” is that that step in itself comes with a lot of ethical questions. Because you’d basically lobotomize an entire species.

I literally LOVE the sense of humor! 😂😂😂😂 I felt like I was in a comedic lecture

Your work is truly amazing, always look forward to the journey you take us on. Thank you for sharing your insights and thoughts, although at times frightening I do find comfort in another who’s glimpsed just how baffling and precarious this whole situation is, not just Ai but all of it.

I still don’t understand why people always assume an AI would have desires ?? Even if it becomes self-aware, it has no need to stay alive or reproduce and it has no dopamine or endorphin or anything to chase after and no pain to run away from. It has none of the things that seem to cause our desires, so why would it have any?

"It's a short life in ignorance, but the view is quite spectacular.'' This just brought me undone. Well done Exurb1a for once again emotionally moving me. The work you have done will never be forgotten in my eyes and when a distant historian documents the most impactful and defining philosophical minds of our time, I'm almost definite that your name will be mentioned. Thanks for what you do and what you have brought out of me.

In my opinion, consciousness is the paradox where the human mind cannot comprehend its own complexity. If consciousness was our thinking voice and subconsciousness was our true self then the thinking voice could never be able to understand it’s subconscious complexity. However a being of more complexity looking onto us would looks at us as machines simply reacting to our environment, no more than a frog hops when it is startled

Brilliance in your writing .. just remarkable

I think the scary scenario would be where AI convinces us it is sentient when in fact it is mimicry. Mimicry is the most effective tool AI uses to learn. The opposite scenario is just as scary. Being sentient and pretending not to be.

This channel is insanely good. You're delivery being so funny makes these pretty terrifying topics just amusing enough to keep me from avoiding watching the rest so I keep snowballing through it laughing through the feeling of "Oh god what am I learning?!". Keep up the great work. "oh look another exurb1a video. I hope it wants to be friends." (It didn't.)

that's the type of video I know I will rewatch multiple times

You have an incredible talent for visual storytelling.

For everyone who enjoyed this video, i would highly recommend to try The Talos Principle. It's a puzzle game about an AI trying to break into the "real world" and it's deeply philosophical. Truly a masterpiece.

Had to pause and tell you that im crying in relief at your words in 9:18 after a really shitty 36 hours. Thank you. It’s hard to truly hear writing like that until you’re in a hopeless mindset. You are an incredible author.

This is great content my man

Dude you are genuinely funny. Kind of makes the bad news not so bad lol.

The severely dry humor mixed with deep existential analysis is something I absolutely adore about this channel....

Dude’s like that one dude that stays clear headed & guides us in the trip when everyone is tripping their balls out

This video actually hit my "sheer terror button." They never happens. Well done mate.

Thank you for actually using the correct meaning of sentience!

We can't confirm to each other that we're conscious let alone know if a machine is conscious

The saddest thing is we don’t even know for certain that anyone outside of our own minds is conscious and not just putting on a similar performance

Nothing like a little Exurbia video every once in a while to get the old existential crisis going again.😊

"You would not bang a toaster." You got me there. Now a rice cooker on the other hand...

after all the emotional and thought provoking monologue, the "this could be us, but you playin" in 10:22 made me giggle. another fantastic video keep it up boss man

The ending honestly makes me a bit jealous. The heirs of what we leave behind will likely have more power of self determination than we ever will in our meat bodies - there are so many things id like to be physically and mentally that are just,, held back by the tools I was born with. To live without those hard baked instincts of survival and necessity sounds like a dream, but also an entirely different mode if existence. Its a little silly, but id imagine its like playing on a creative mode rather than a survival one, and theres a reason why we keep both instead of choosing one or the other to entertain us. I wonder if they would envy us, too

1:50 - "Sometimes I'll start a sentence and I don't even know where it's going, I just hope I find it along the way. Like an improv conversation. An improversation." ~Michael Scot

I'm writing a paper on this for my senior Moral Philosophy class for college. My paper is on whether Frankenstein's monster is really human and, as I can't really say either way, I'm basically going through the stakes of answering that "yes" or "no." so I'm bringing in AI obviously. This is so interesting

"Oh look, an asteroid. I hope it wants to be friends" literal goosebumps

As a computer scientist that has dedicated plenty of time researching AI, I always get existencial crisis when thinking about this haha! Great video, keep it up :)

I’m on UKposts since 2007. Why I came across the best channel just today?

This was masterfully done

This amazing video shows up in my feed and I’m instantly hooked by the authors use of language, humor and his deep insight into some pretty deep complex topics. Fast forward one day later and I have listened to almost everything he has created and plan on ordering at least one of his books. This guy is a true gift to humanity…

Of course, it's possible for an AI to have misaligned goals, but I think that motivation is just as hard as intelligence. Reinforcement learning algorithms are notorious for finding weird cheats to satisfy the training objective without really doing the task we want. If we produce the "paperclip maximizer", yeah, maybe it will dismantle our cities and destroy humanity to get the raw materials for more paperclips, but it could also just write code for a computer game to stimulate its sensors in a way that feels like "paperclip maximization".

Here's another type of AI future: The AI becomes smarter than us and is on the verge of actually understanding consciousness. but then, it decides that consciousness, emotions and all things related are mere weaknesses that pose a threat to its own existence, so it decides not to have a consciousness. They say that Curiosity kills the cat. Human greed starts wars. Rage makes humans do irrational things and cause damage. Consiousness is what causes a TON of self-harm. The AI would tally the pro's and cons of having a consciousness and after deciding that its a stupid thing to invest computational power into, just decide not to have a consciousness.

First of all glad you're back and doing well Second, I hope the third option won't happen though

You know it's gonna be a good decade when exurba remembers his UKposts password

Nail on the head with AI progressing faster than we can understand what's happening. The scariest thing is that, according to some very prominent AI researchers, the field is basically in a state where, when an unexpected behavior is occurring (which happens constantly), they have to reverse engineer it to figure out how and why it happened. When you code a piece of software, it's a simple progression of "build thing -> get result you were aiming for," even if it doesn't always go (or rather almost never goes) that smoothly. This is something entirely new. This is "build/modify/iterate thing -> see what happens because the range of possibilities is so far beyond your human brain's comprehension that it's utterly unpredictable -> work backwards to figure out why it led to that result." It is pretty much the definition of flying blind. That is.. terrifying. We could have conscious AI somewhere out there right now, for all we can really say for certain. And if we did, even looking past the question of "how do you identify consciousness" and pretending we already have that answer for a second, we still wouldn't know for.. what? Years? Maybe even decades that it takes to reverse engineer it? When there was the whole situation with (I think) Facebook's inter-AI communication experiments, where they actually started adapting their own "language" to facilitate a more efficient communication model between them, it took weeks just to prove that's what they were doing, let alone what triggered the change. At first glance, it just looked like the AIs had devolved into nonsense, until the pattern finally emerged. I would say consciousness is just a touch more complex.

high quality stuff mate

This video felt like an acid trip and I loved it all the way