Thinking Machines: Digital Neurons and the Future of Humanity

Episode 1. Cyborgs at the Gate: Professor Anil Seth on Imitating Digital Neurons, Consciousness and the Future of Thinking Machines

The inaugural episode of Thinking Machines: Digital Neurons and the Future of Humanity opens with a rare conversation with Professor Anil K. Seth - Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex; Director of the Sussex Centre for Consciousness Science; and Co-Director of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) Program on Brain, Mind and Consciousness. He is also the author of the bestselling book Being You and one of the world’s leading authorities on perception, brain dynamics, and the science of consciousness. His TED talk, “Your Brain Hallucinates Your Conscious Reality,” has been viewed more than 15 million times and has profoundly shaped public understanding of how the mind constructs reality. In this episode, we explore the frontier where biology meets computation. Topics include: • Can machines ever truly think, or do they only compute? • What happens when engineers begin to imitate digital neurons and push toward AGI? • Is there such a thing as intelligence without experience? • Could a machine ever host something like a self — or is consciousness uniquely biological? • What Seth’s theory of consciousness as a “controlled hallucination” means for the future of artificial minds A rigorous, imaginative, and deeply clarifying conversation to launch the series. Tune in to this fascinating episode with Professor Anil Seth as we stand at the gates between human thought and engineered minds.

Trailer

What if machines could feel pain… dream… or even fall in love? In this brand-new podcast, Thinking Machines, host Tamim Asey explores the meeting point between biology and technology  where human neurons meet digital ones. Each episode dives deep into how artificial intelligence, neuroscience and machine learning are reshaping the future of thought, emotion and evolution itself. From the rise of synthetic minds to the ethics of digital consciousness Thinking Machines examines how carbon-based and silicon-based intelligence may coexist, cooperate or collide. The series also tackles humanity’s most urgent frontier: the pursuit of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and Artificial Superintelligence (ASI) and the profound existential risks they pose. Through in-depth conversations with leading thinkers, scientists, and ethicists, Thinking Machines asks: What does it mean to be human when our creations begin to think back?