The Insiders' View of AI: Faggin and Frenkel

One of the highlights of the SAND17 conference, this discussion starts by introducing Federico Faggin, the inventor of the first microprocessor and one of the creators of the digital revolution, who describes the experience that convinced him that computers as we know them cannot be conscious. Edward Frenkel joins him to discuss the issue of artificial intelligence, and the process they have both experienced of switching their perspective from the dimension of traditional scientific exploration to investigating their own feeling body and its complex meaning. The suggestion is made that the obsession with artificial intelligence is today’s version of the question, Who am I? and both agree that the answer comes from the heart, not the mind.