Are We Just Advanced Predictive Models? (The Science)

In this riveting episode, Malcolm and Simone delve into groundbreaking research suggesting that the human brain functions similarly to large language models (LLMs). They challenge the idea of sentience, proposing that our consciousness may be an illusion crafted by a token-predicting brain. They explore experimental evidence, including split-brain studies, choice blindness experiments, and neurosurgeon simulations, to highlight how our internal narratives and decisions are often post-rationalized. The episode uncovers the astonishing parallels between AI and human brain architecture, advocating for a reevaluation of what makes us human and the ethical implications of this understanding for AI. Dive into a thought-provoking discussion that bridges neuroscience and AI, debunking myths about human cognition and sentience.

[00:00:00]

Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone! Today is going to be an exciting episode. I implore our listeners to stop anthropomorphizing humans.

Simone Collins: Oh, but seriously, actually though. But seriously and actually,

Malcolm Collins: this is going to be a real study heavy episode. We're going to be going over a lot of research and a lot of data.

And if you do not come into this, Believing that the human brain, or at least large parts of it, is just a token predictor working architecturally potentially similar to A. I. s. We know the, the, where their difference in architecture even and we'll go into that. I mean, I'm fairly sure I'll convince most people who actually watched to the end.

So today we're going to be going over a number of recent papers that show clear evidence The human brain is a token predictor or at least the most complicated parts of it are But before that we have to go over an old theories of ours Because the first thing you the [00:01:00] viewer are likely thinking is but hey I have an internal subjective experience of thinking and making decisions that an LLM would not.

Well, that's probably an illusion. Or, I should be more clear. Your conscious subjective experience of reality is real. It just happens after reality and in response to it. And we actually have a ton of experimental evidence that this is the case. This is a theory that Simone convinced me of early in our marriage, and now is key to how I see the world.

So for any who think all of our ideas go from me to Simone, this is not the case. I used to value sentience above all else when I first met Simone. This is

Simone Collins: true.

Malcolm Collins: And now, I'm thinking like the core goal of humanity was to preserve and expand sentience, and now I see sentience as Not particularly important to the human condition.

The first thing I'm going to be doing here is going over a lot , of stuff in a condensed format that we went over a video that we created. It was like the fourth video on the channel or something. You're [00:02:00] probably not sentient. And a lot of our modern viewers won't have watched it in

the studies that we cite in our necessary context to understand that you believing that you have a subjective internal experience of the world is not a sign that that internal experience of the world is particularly important to the human condition.

Or at least the broad pattern of thinking that your brain has.

So, to be more clear, in this model, your conscious subjective experience is not a guy driving your brain, but more like a nerdy court historian watching a bunch of video feeds of what the different parts of your brain are doing, then synthesizing it into a singular narrative, but writing himself in as the key player in every scene.

Yeah. So, like, so, like, if he is writing about what a general did in a war Now, , what's written into memory is, I was a great general who had all these amazing plans, even though he had nothing to do with any of the decisions the general was making.

He just happens to be the court historian, [00:03:00] and is very, very self important, and writes himself into every story.

Simone Collins: In other words, the, the illusion of consciousness is really just an efficient memory compression. process that gives you the illusion that you are driving. The important thing is that the memories that you create that make you think you're conscious actually do affect future decisions.

They're just not conscious decisions.

Malcolm Collins: Yes, they affect them by influencing the emotions that are codified in terms of how it interprets it. So if you interpret something as like, I was angry, so I did X, or I was excited, so I did X. That's what this conscious part of your brain does, is it makes those sorts of decisions, it then writes them into your memory, and that memory can affect the parts of your brain that actually make most of the other decisions of your life.

But those other decisions are held outside of this category of the brain. So first, we'll just go over the evidence of this, because the evidence of this is so strong that I would argue it's one of the things where it's not even a scientific [00:04:00] debate anymore. It's to believe otherwise is a Theological position and I can respect that but it's just completely out of line with the scientific evidence.

Yeah So the split brain corpus callosum experiments these refer to roger sperry and michael gazillions work so split brain patients if you're not familiar These are individuals that have a corpus callosum, which connects the left and right brain split. You can communicate with one of their hemispheres and not the other hemisphere.

Basically, they have two brains fully working in their head that can't talk to each other. And by covering one of their eyes and having them read something, you communicate with the opposite hemisphere of the brain. So you can do things like have only one hemisphere. the brain see something but then the other hemisphere because only one of the two hemispheres controls all speech, it, there's a dominant one in most people, but it changes depending on the person.

Only one hemisphere will be controlling what the individual says. And so we can determine how an individual would [00:05:00] respond to events that they actually don't have any conscious control over. So to give some examples here a patient known as P. S., in one particular demonstration, he was shown a nude image to only the patient's right hemisphere, which typically lacks language centers.

P. S. Immediately blush and appeared embarrassed. When asked why he was reacting this way, his verbal left hemisphere, which had no access to what his right hemisphere had seen, promptly invented an explanation, claiming, Oh that machine, it's making me hot. His conscious mind had no idea he'd seen a new image, yet rather than admit ignorance, it immediately fabricated a plausible, but entirely false explanation for his emotional response.

And I'll note here as we go into this, if you're thinking these people know they are making something up, they are not aware that they are making something up. They completely believe what they are saying. In a different study with split brain patients, the left hemisphere was shown the word walk, while the right hemisphere was shown the word talk.

When the patient stood up and started walking, the [00:06:00] researchers asked why. Despite only the left hemisphere being able to respond verbally and having seen walk, the patient confidently explained, I'm going to get a Coca Cola, completely fabricating a motivation that matched their action. but had nothing to do with the actual command.

Similarly, when different images were shown to each hemisphere and the patient was asked to draw what they saw with each hand separately, their left hemisphere would often create elaborate