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Jaan Aru is a co-principal investigator of the Natural and Artificial Intelligence Lab at the University of Tartu in Estonia, where he is an associate professor. Jaan's name has kept popping up on papers I've read over the last few years, sometimes alongside other guests I've had on the podcast, like Matthew Larkum and Mac Shine. With those people and others, he has co-authored papers exploring how some of the pesky biological details of brains might be important for our subjective conscious experience, details like dendritic integration, and loops between the cortex and the thalamus. Turns out a recurring theme in his work is to connect lower-level nitty gritty biological details with higher level cognitive functioning. And he has some thoughts about what that might mean for the prospects of consciousness in artificial systems. And we also touch on his more recent interest in understanding the brain basis of insight and creativity, connecting some of the more mundane kinds of insights during problem solving, for example, with some of the more profound kinds of insights during mystical and psychedelic experiences, for example.
Natural & Artificial Intelligence Lab
Social: @jaanaru.bsky.social
Related papers
The feasibility of artificial consciousness through the lens of neuroscience
On biological and artificial consciousness: A case for biological computationalism
Cellular mechanisms of conscious processing.
Realization experiences: a convergent account of insight and mystical experiences.
0:00 - Intro
4:21 - Jaan's approach
8:51 - Likelihood of machine consciousness
18:58 - Across-levels understanding
30:23 - Intelligence vs consciousness
36:27 - Connecting low-level implementation to cognition
45:42 - Organization and constraints
52:28 - Thalamocortical loops
1:04:18 - Artificial consciousness
1:14:34 - Theories of consciousness
1:23:16 - Creativity and insight
1:37:26 - Science research in Estonia