“Could AI programs become sentient?” It’s a familiar question. The human race has been asking it since before HAL from A Space Odyssey appeared on our screens — but when you have the opportunity to interview one of the world’s leading experts on AI, you have to ask it anew.
I’m expecting a roll of the eyes; a weary “Of course not.” But instead, Professor Vincent Conitzer — a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University and Oxford University with a focus on AI and machine learning, and the head of Technical AI Engagement at the Institute for Ethics in AI — stops to consider.
