“If there’s a singularity, would the resulting AI, or AIs, feel conscious and self-aware? Would they have an internal reality? If not, they’re for all practical purposes zombies. Of all traits that our human form of life has, I feel that consciousness is by far the most remarkable. As far as I’m concerned, it’s how our Universe gets meaning, so if our Universe gets taken over by life that lacks this trait, then it’s meaningless and just a huge waste of space.”
Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality (2014)
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Max Tegmark 24
Swedish-American cosmologist 1967Related quotes

Fourth Lecture, p. 74.
The Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution (1950)

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/06/elon-musk-warns-ai-could-create-immortal-dictator-in-documentary.html
Context: If AI has a goal and humanity just happens to be in the way, it will destroy humanity as a matter of course without even thinking about it. No hard feelings. It’s just like, if we’re building a road and an anthill just happens to be in the way, we don’t hate ants, we’re just building a road, and so, goodbye anthill.

“Without consciousness and intelligence, the universe would lack meaning.”
Highway of Eternity (1986)