RIP to a legend. If you haven’t heard of him and are interested in the more philosophical side of AI I think he’s at his best in dialogue with others, so I high

RIP to a legend. If you haven’t heard of him and are interested in the more philosophical side of AI I think he’s at his best in dialogue with others, so I highly recommend skimming this 1993 round table that made me fall in love with him. I can’t find the stamp, but I know at some point he excitedly describes machine learning research to some guffaws from his interlocutors — quite funny and vindicating in hindsight. https://youtu.be/RVrnn7QW6Jg?si=jenbni0Rg1dX5fd4 https://youtu.be/RVrnn7QW6Jg?si=jenbni0Rg1dX5fd4 At ~01:50:00, he talks very poignantly about death, the soul, and immortality. Obviously this video is 30 years old now, but I doubt he changed much and it seems his philosophy left him with good tools to handle the specter of death. Godspeed Dennett, the world is in your debt... Some other, perhaps more lighthearted timestamps: - @ 01:00:00; A Nagel discussion culminating in “I think we’re making tremendous progress on knowing what it’s like to be a bat!” Truly a Silicon Valley optimist before it was cool. - at 01:12:00; He tells a fun robotics story to back up his belief in the tractability of neurophilosophy. - @ 01:40:00; he discusses his general philosophy for the mind and why he thinks our brains can be broken down into a recursive hierarchy of agential machines. - 00:24:00 is the moment that made me love him. Love to hate him, perhaps! Like a more prestigious, less directly-aggressive Gary Marcus.