Transhuman Consciousness (AI-Enhanced) | Roman Yampolskiy

Añadido: 2026-05-09

[00:00:08]Roman, one of the big topics in the scientific community is transhumanism.

[00:00:15]Where humans are extended through chip implementation, genetic engineering.

[00:00:26]We see things like the cochlear implants where deaf people can be made to hear with remarkable acuity after after a while.

[00:00:38]And so what I what I'd like to do is explore transhumanism.

[00:00:42]What what AI can bring to the the conversation and people are saying that just as we have cochlear implants today that in the future we can have very sophisticated electronic chips that can be put into our brain and that would be an amplification and sort of the merging of AI with human and we have a a transhuman consciousness. From your work on AI and AI safety and understanding the the great dangers as you put it then AI's in your in your extraordinary extraordinary important book AI unexplainable, unpredictable, uncontrollable you have a sense of what AI is. So from that perspective, from your perspective of what AI is and can become, what are the implications of not just AI taking over and getting rid of us which is your primary concern, but what would that mean for the merging of that type of intelligence with a human brain?

[00:01:52]People often suggest merger as a solution to the control problem. And I never understood what the human would offer in that equation. So you have this symbiosis where two entities somehow help each other. What you're going to have with humans and super intelligence is parasitic relationship. You have a human who is slow, bad memory, not very intelligent in comparison, basically biological bottleneck.

[00:02:22]Either explicitly or implicitly it has to be removed from the hybrid system.

[00:02:26]Ask yourself in a world with super intelligence, what do you have to contribute?

[00:02:31]Yeah, okay. I mean that I I I would agree with that, but if we go down that road of this merger, not to where when it's it's not a question of competing with the AI by itself, it's a question of human enhancement.

[00:02:50]And what would it mean to human enhancement to to have this merger? I understand your point that from an AI safety point of view the AI will eventually get rid of the the parasite obstacle and and have no need for it.

[00:03:12]That's a separate question. The question I want to I want to ask is that if people move towards this this merger with AI with human consciousness, what what will that consciousness feel like? What what will that transhuman consciousness be?

[00:03:27]That's a good question but we cannot know because we are not transhumans. It would be essentially killing humanity and replacing it with something else, something smarter, something faster, better, but it won't be us.

[00:03:41]But I mean let's say you at an early stage. I mean I think you're dealing with an end stage of what might be there, but at an early stage as as I said with to do something simple like a cochlear implant for people who are profoundly deaf and that only works if they had hearing during certain part of their life and so they can be retrained to do that.

[00:04:02]But that's a that's a concrete difference that they would have, but that's that's not an impact on their consciousness, it's an impact on their their perceptibility, their ability to have a sensation. But if you had a real merger, how might that affect our our whole sense of self or I'm looking at that early stage which it's more than sensation, but there's a a merger with the consciousness which you believe AI has a conscious. So AI conscious would merge with human conscious. What what can you can you even estimate what that might be?

[00:04:46]Not sure. So we have a brain which is composed of two parts joined together.

[00:04:52]We know from surgeries where one of the halves is removed that you remain basically the same. So it doesn't matter if I take left half of your right half of you, there is two of you already kind of conjoined inside. I'm assuming if one of those parts was artificial, it would feel exactly the same. It would feel like you, but now you have direct access to internet or something like that. Huh.

[00:05:16]Okay.

[00:05:17]And and so that the analogy you would use is the the the split split brain where both of them are you even though they have different capabilities.

[00:05:29]And so you you would feel you would feel the same at this early stage, but just have direct access to information. I wouldn't have to look up I wouldn't have to look you up in Wikipedia to know that you were born in Latvia. I I would just know that. I would just have instant knowledge that that was the case. Right. So like if I didn't sleep enough or had a little too much to drink, I realize my memory is very bad. But I'm still feeling like me.

[00:05:59]It would be like that but now my memory is very good.

[00:06:02]>> [laughter] >> So is that a good thing to aspire to?

[00:06:07]For humanity? It's a question of degree.

[00:06:10]So having perfect memory may be awesome, but if everything about you is now a million times better, stronger, different, you are no longer you, you are someone else.

[00:06:22]You may be happy about it, but yours, your personality, you as an individual no longer exist. And that could be concerning to some people.

[00:06:32]Now people who talk about transhuman consciousness believe it would enhance human utilitarianism, welfare, etc. by giving us more capabilities, perfect memory, access to information, maybe a greater understanding of the laws of physics or spirituality or who knows what that that that combination would would would would would would deliver. I think your concern would be if that process begins and that there is this intermediate good result for human beings having these more capabilities that over time the AI would think I don't need this other part.

[00:07:17]Exactly. People talk about how it's a great equalizer. You know, everyone with access to advanced AI will have a queue of a thousand. But what are you contributing to it? Why do we need you in that situation? We have all these AIs, they're advanced, and then we have you and you know what ice cream tastes like to you. Okay, great. Who cares?

[00:07:38]Right? So why are you still part of this equation? You're not making decisions.

[00:07:42]You are not the one who remembers things, the system is. So again, it's like my old phone. So right now I have somewhat modern iPhone. I don't keep my Nokia phone taped to my head just for nostalgia purposes.

[00:07:56]I could have I could have said all together we merged and now I have this ability to dial. No, I removed it as soon as I could. And I think it's going to be the same. You are much slower, you require a lot of energy, certain temperatures. There is no reason to keep you around. So transhuman consciousness in your view has no human aspect at all. It seems like you're removing what it means to be human and replacing us with something else. An example I sometimes use is if my wife decided to find a different man, someone much taller and much richer. That's wonderful, but it does nothing for me.

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