DiSCourse Seminar with Barry Smith
30 October 2020, 13:00 (CET), online
DiSCourse* - The Digital Science Seminar Series on
The Impossibility of Digital Immortality
To be computable on a machine, AI software must conform to some mathematical model. This is true also of ‘stochastic’ neural network software, where the mathematical model is generated implicitly by using a training set of input-output data. This implies that there are limitations to the advance of AI which derive from the impossibility of creating mathematical models of biological and other complex systems. We survey the implications of this limitation for the possibility of whole brain emulation, brain enhancement, and digital immortality.
*featuring a distinguished guest: Barry Smith, University at Buffalo
Barry Smith is SUNY Distinguished Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Director of the National Center for Ontological Research in the University at Buffalo. He is a prominent contributor to both theoretical and applied research in ontology, especially in the biomedical domain.