What does it feel like to be a dog? And can ChatGPT feel anything?

What is it like to be a dog? In this session we'll spend an hour or so in the world of my dog Monty. We will consider his extraordinary nose, his vision, and the strange new neuroscience of how he perceives. We will use that as a way into one of the deepest questions in philosophy: what consciousness actually is, and why it's so hard to explain through science.

We will then compare the way Monty experiences the world with how AI Large Language Models work, and whether it makes sense to think that LLMs might have felt-experience.

Note I did this talk in May this year under the title "Monty's World". If you came to that talk then don't come to this one.

This session will be led by James.

A relatively recent book on the subject I can recommend is Being You: A New Science of Consciousness by Anil Seth. A World Appears
A Journey Into Consciousness by Michael Pollen is also really good. A good overall review of philosophy related to consciousness is Philosophers on Consciousness: Talking about the Mind (Talking about Philosophy) by Jack Symes. If you want to know more about how animals experience the world, An Immense World by Ed Yong is great.

Bring wine/beer/drinks/food/snacks/whatever if you want to.
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Press the buzzer marked Semi sotano 2 to be let in. It's down the stairs, first door on the right.

Image: My dog Monty on a walk near Montserrat.