AI isn’t conscious. It never will be. But what if that’s exactly the problem?

In Chapter 7 of Irreducible, Federico Faggin confronts the hard problem of consciousness — and so do Mark and Jeremy. Why can machines mimic emotion, but never feel it? Why can they write about grief or joy, but never experience either? And does that make them tools, or something more dangerous?

This episode pulls apart qualia, panpsychism, emotional AI, and the limits of synthetic empathy. It asks what separates you from a pattern-matching machine — and whether that line is as solid as it feels.

If AI keeps imitating consciousness well enough to fool us, what happens when we start pretending we don’t care whether it’s real?

Please enjoy the show. And share with a curious friend.

Listen to chapter 1-6: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2EteMXVv-8&t=357s&ab_channel=ThinkingOnPaper

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Chapters

(00:00) Introduction to Consciousness and AI

(02:32) The Nature of Consciousness

(05:12) Qualia and Human Experience

(07:27) The Distinction Between Humans and Machines

(09:23) The Hard Problem of Consciousness

(11:27) AI, Empathy, and Human Connection

(13:40) Cultural Norms and AI Integration

(16:10) Interiority and Quantum Consciousness

(17:54) True Intelligence vs. Machine Intelligence

(19:46) Comprehension and Perception

(22:20) The Future of Consciousness and AI

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