Michael Pollan says AI may ‘think’ — but it will never be conscious

Michael Pollan is the author of A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness. Christopher Michel/Penguin Random House

Christopher Michel/Penguin Random House

What is consciousness?

After writing a book about how using psychedelics in a therapeutic setting can change your consciousness, that’s the question journalist Michael Pollan found himself struggling to answer.

“There’s nothing any of us know with more certainty than the fact that we are conscious. It’s immediately available to us. It’s the voice in our head,” he says. And yet, Pollan adds: “How does three pounds of this tofu-like substance between your ears generate subjective experience? Nobody knows

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