I think you misunderstood (or didn't really read) the whole thing. I don't think he's conflating "tech easier" with "people dumber", but rather bringing up an

I think you misunderstood (or didn't really read) the whole thing. I don't think he's conflating "tech easier" with "people dumber", but rather bringing up an interesting way of thinking about the issue. Also, he isn't conflating intelligence with consciousness -- his whole point about the Turing test is that he thinks people "don't get it" -- that it's not really proving anything (and he uses the logical device of saying "what if the judge of the test is dumb"). Here's the text of slide #80, for example: •The real test is consciousness, not intelligence •An “intelligent” machine is not necessarily conscious •Conversely: a machine does not need to be too intelligent in order to be conscious (many people are not intelligent)