Data science student
AI is more than a field of study. It's an age-old reflection on humanity. For the first time, engineers can formalize and experiment with centuries of theory in philosophy and cognitive science, seeing their empirical consequences on massive scales. Our path to AGI forces us to confront bizarre questions about the human experience, complex systems (from governments to cells), intelligence, and morality. For example, what does it really mean to reason, feel, and care like a human? How can we tell whether something has an internal experience, or is pretending to have one? What is the purpose of life, what's the goal of the universe, what is ethical, and how do we know if we're right? These questions, which for a long time have been distant philosophical musings, are likely to take on an urgent pragmatic significance in the next few decades as we expand the scope and capabilities of AI technology.