Towards a Conscious AI: A Computer Architecture Inspired by Neuroscience

Thanks to major advances in neuroscience, we are on the brink of a scientific understanding of how the brain achieves consciousness. This talk will describe neuroscientist Bernard Baars' Global Workspace Model (GWM) of the brain, its implications for understanding consciousness, and a novel computer architecture that it inspires. The Model gives insight for the design of machines that truly experience (as opposed to simulate) the ecstasy of joy and the agony of pain. It also gives a reasonable explanation of free will in a completely deterministic world.

Joint work with Lenore Blum.

In celebration of the 50th anniversary of computer science at UC Berkeley and the university’s sesquicentennial, EECS and the Simons Institute are launching a special series of lectures by winners of the ACM A.M. Turing Award, considered the field’s equivalent of a Nobel Prize. In addition to their technical talk, the lecturers will reflect on their time at UC Berkeley and look toward the future of research and technological development in their fields.

Light refreshments will be served before the lecture at 3:30 p.m.