Clockwork Ducks & AI Mind Tricks

Recent developments in generative AI have been associated with jaw-dropping technical advances, wildly exuberant predictions, and controversies about the nature of life itself. This atmosphere has occurred before. My talk will be about the Digesting Duck, a clockwork-driven robot duck, which was a sensation across Europe in the 18th Century. I’ll describe some links between the Digesting Duck and modern AI, both in terms of technological development, and of the philosophical questions raised in discussions about them. What can we learn from the Duck that might be applicable to modern AI?

Imagine machines learning from the world in the same intuitive way humans do: mastering tasks from walking to puzzle-solving with the same fluid adaptability that defines us. This vision is rapidly becoming a reality, marking a new era in our technological journey. In my talk, I’ll delve into how we're guiding artificial agents to emulate the complex decision-making of biological entities like us, employing generative models as our tool. This approach does more than push the boundaries of artificial intelligence; it offers us a mirror to better understand our own neural processes.