The cognitive revolution is not a term I coined – I heard it spoken of for the first time in an interview with Reid Hoffman in relation to his role at start-up, Inflection AI. The video interview is below, take a peak. I’m not sure this term is going to stick but I am interested in aspects of it reflected in the title of this post.

“Cognitive industrial revolution, the steam engines of the mind”, is how Reid expresses it. He seems to say that what was positive about the industrial revolution and the advances made in it by humans, will now be accelerated by AI in a new revolution of the mind. His seems very much a complimentary view, humans and AI together going further.

But much recent commentary has been about the dangers of AI, which Reid also points out. How AI is pushing humans to make them redundant for instance.

Almost like a zero sum game where AI or humans will win at the expense of the other in a race for supremacy. But as I believe and many like Reid are positing, AI should be seen as a supportive technology where humans, in cooperation with AI, can win in a race (if that’s what it is) to the top.

The human / AI spectrum – not an either or proposition

The terms “sentience” and “consciousness” are often used interchangeably, but they can have slightly different meanings depending on the context.

Sentience refers to the capacity to have subjective experiences, sensations, or feelings. It is commonly associated with the ability to perceive and respond to stimuli in the environment. Sentient beings are aware of their surroundings and can experience pleasure, pain, emotions, and other subjective states. Sentience is often used to describe the basic level of awareness or perceptual consciousness possessed by various animals.

Consciousness is a broader and more complex concept. It refers to the state of being aware and having an understanding of one’s own existence, thoughts, sensations, and surroundings. Consciousness involves not only perception and experience but also higher-order cognitive functions such as self-awareness, introspection, and the ability to reason and reflect. It encompasses a range of mental activities, including attention, memory, reasoning, and the sense of self. Consciousness is often considered a hallmark of human cognition, although debates about its nature and whether it exists in other animals or even inanimate systems are ongoing.

I make these distinctions (actually ChatGPT did) because I think they point to the differences whereby humans and AI diverge and potentially where our separate capabilities can combine to create value.

I’ve created a DanelDoodle to explain the way I see it with a little more explanation below it.

Certain commentators say AI has reached levels of sentience, (starting with Blake Lemoine, a former Google engineer, based on a conversation he had and documented), but this is far from clear. And even if close, it is still far from the level of consciousness that humans have.

This level of consciousness in humans gives us an edge in our cognitive functions and in the revolution, if that is what we are in.

And I am also saying it doesn’t have to be a race to the bottom but rather one to the top where we collaborate closely with AI to innovate and take the human race to the next level.

But then I am a glass half full type of person and technophile. And that is probably what it boils down to, in terms how you see the role of AI.