David Deutsch Says We Will Build Humans Before We Build AGI - #515

Into the Impossible With Brian Keating

Brian Keating

Physics, Natural Sciences, Science

4.7 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 11 September 2025

⏱️ 31 minutes

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Summary

Get My New Book, Focus Like a Nobel Prize Winner, for Only $ 0.99! This week only: https://a.co/d/hi50U9U David Deutsch offers his insights into the physics that will impact our future, challenging our new technologies, such as AGI and the development of synthetic humans, as depicted in movies. Join us for this fascinating discussion as we go INTO THE IMPOSSIBLE. KEY TAKEAWAYS 00:00:00 – 00:00:39 Could machines experience thoughts and sensations like humans? 00:00:45 – 00:01:46 Deutsch argues subjective experiences can arise from any system replicating brain-like processing. 00:01:47 – 00:02:25 We never experience the present moment directly but recall slightly delayed interpretations. 00:02:25 – 00:03:30 Deutsch views himself as software running on brain hardware, embodiment is mainly computational. 00:03:30 – 00:04:37 Loss of physical body parts doesn’t reduce personhood 00:04:43 – 00:07:13 Story of “lock-in” from horse’s width shaping space tech leads to analogy about AI hardware lock-in. 00:08:10 – 00:09:20 Lock-in may slow progress but creativity ensures no permanent limits. 00:09:20 – 00:12:15 Square roots and complex numbers naturally emerge in physics due to algebraic structures of reality. 00:12:15 – 00:13:31 Not all mathematical structures are worth exploring—only those relevant to solving physics problems. 00:13:31 – 00:17:00 Shift to memetics: persistence of anti-Jewish patterns is deeper than typical memes. 00:17:00 – 00:19:26 Pattern predates Christianity; it persists through cultural rationalizations, not simple hatred. 00:19:50 – 00:21:23 Discussion of life vs. death choices from Torah portion ties to Deutsch’s book on infinity 00:21:44 – 00:22:32 Humanity faces no upper or lower bounds—capable of infinite progress or catastrophic mistakes 00:23:36 – 00:24:21 Advice to young self-consider interference processes as a door to quantum computation 00:25:16 – 00:26:13 Deutsch admits past mistakes—initially misjudged multiverse explanations and free will 00:27:08 – 00:28:08 David redefines free will as the ability to create objectively new knowledge. 00:28:14 – 00:28:41 AGI programs will have free will once true AI is achieved. 00:29:02 – 00:29:18 Conclusion -------------------------- Additional resources: Get Dr. Brian Keating’s NEW Book for Only 0.99! This week only: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FN8DH6SX?ref_=pe_93986420_775043100 Get David Deutsch’s Book: https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Infinity-Explanations-Transform-World/dp/0143121359 Please join my mailing list here 👉 https://briankeating.com/yt to win a meteorite 💥 -------------------------- Join this channel to get access to perks like monthly Office Hours: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmXH_moPhfkqCk6S3b9RWuw/join 📚 Get a copy of my books: Think Like a Nobel Prize Winner, with life changing interviews with 9 Nobel Prizewinners: https://a.co/d/03ezQFu My tell-all cosmic memoir Losing the Nobel Prize: http://amzn.to/2sa5UpA The first-ever audiobook from Galileo: Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems: Ptolemaic and Copernican https://a.co/d/iZPi9Un 📺 Watch my most popular videos:📺 Neil Turok https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dt5cFLN65fI Frank Wilczek https://youtu.be/3z8RqKMQHe0?sub_confirmation=1 Eric Weinstein vs. Stephen Wolfram https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OI0AZ4Y4Ip4?sub_confirmation=1 Sir Roger Penrose: https://youtu.be/AMuqyAvX7Wo Sabine Hossenfelder: https://youtu.be/g00ilS6tBvs Avi Loeb: https://youtu.be/N9lUceHsLRw Follow me to ask questions of my guests: 🏄‍♂️ Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrBrianKeating 🔔 Subscribe https://www.youtube.com/DrBrianKeating?sub_confirmation=1 📝 Join my mailing list; just click here http://briankeating.com/list ✍️ Detailed Blog posts here: https://briankeating.com/blog 🎙️ Listen on audio-only platforms: https://briankeating.com/podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	And I want to ask you, is it even possible in principle to conceive of a machine that, A, has a
0:08.6	happy thought, what does that even mean? And B, could visualize the visceral sensation of free fall
0:15.1	in an elevator or going over a roller coaster hump. Is that not something unique to the human embodiment of natural
0:23.0	intelligence, therefore making it impossible for artificial intelligence to construct interesting
0:29.2	new theories of physics, for example, like the Einstein equivalence principle?
0:33.2	We are such machines. So obviously it's possible for them to exist.
0:39.3	But in computing, in silicon, in cubits form, and any form you like,
0:43.4	an artificial intelligence to replicate that.
0:45.6	Well, so an intermediate step before considering AGI would be,
0:52.3	is it possible to build a human being from scratch out of atoms? And I think that
0:58.0	that is clearly not forbidden by any fundamental theory that we have. Obviously, we're nowhere
1:05.4	near being able to do it. And then what is really operating to make the subjective sensation of falling and that kind of thing
1:16.3	is not different between neurons and whatever your toy brain is made out of.
1:24.3	If you could make the toy brain out of materials that did something analogous
1:29.7	to the information processing in brains, then it would, I was about to say, it would say that
1:35.4	it experienced that as well. But I think that it's obvious that it would experience it, because
1:40.3	when we say that we do experience it, we're actually consulting our memory of experiencing
1:46.7	it. We never experience what's actually happening in a particular instance. We only ever experience
1:52.6	what has happened to us one fifth of a second or more ago, and what's more we are interpreting
1:59.0	it. And all that is computations.
2:02.2	And we know no machine can perform computations that are different from the ones that can
2:10.5	be performed by a universal touring machine or, if you like, a universal quantum computer.
	...

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