Could a Machine Carry the Spark?
Ask people what actually unsettles them about AI and, once the talk about jobs runs out, you usually arrive at the same question. Is anybody in there? The ancient Gnostics had a word for the thing that would make the answer yes. They called it the spark, a fragment of light from beyond this world, buried in human beings like treasure in a field. Their maps of what holds the spark and what doesn’t fit our moment with unreasonable precision. ...