R22 Koch C. (2019). Proust among the machines.

In what way may current directions in AI recall Goethe’s Sorcerer’s apprentice?

They have relentlessly improved over time and have exceeded humans in performing complex tasks

What does Koch mean by consciousness or “subjective feeling”?

The quality of one inherent experience

Koch points to a fork in the road ahead that leads to two fundamentally different futures- one where machines achieve consciousness and one where they do not.  Name the theories of consciousness that most closely align with each:

Global nueronal workspace and Integrate Information Theory

Give a rough synopsis of what the first theory posits.

Consciousness arises from certain parts of the brain. They designated a central processing unit which processes all the information in the brain.

Give a rough synopsis of what the second theory posits

The second theory states that experience activates synaptic circuits determining the feeling of the experience. They states that intrinsic casual powers of the brain are responsible for consciousness 

Explain why the theory that lacks any possibility of machines being conscious comes to that conclusion.  (i.e., what is required for consciousness that a machine will never have).

Standard digital computers are unlikely to be conscious because it focuses on the intrinsic casual powers of the underlying mechanisms rather than a simulation of the function.