Joscha Bach - Agency in an Age of Machines

Synopsis: The arrival of homo sapiens on Earth amounted to a singularity for its ecosystems, a transition that dramatically changed the distribution and interaction of living species within a relatively short amount of time. Such transitions are not unprecedented during the evolution of life, but machine intelligence represents a new phenomenon: for the first time, there are agents on earth that are not part of the biosphere. Instead of competing for a niche in the ecosystems of living systems, AI might compete with life itself. How can we understand agency in the context of the cooperation and competition between AI, humans and other organisms? 0:00 Introduction 1:14 Presentation starts 1:48 Spirits & western confusion about consciousness 5:48 Genesis: an updated version of the origin story (6 stages) 13:30 The history of studying agency 15:07 Today’s models & AI systems 18:35 Cybernetics: modeling in the service of control 22:09 Computation vs. cyberneti