[fritzo]

Question for Adrian: All your sentient beings are animal-like: they are discrete animals that move around, or at weirdest are a ruinous sludge that moves around and assumes the form of animals. But might we see mycelium networks as sentient?

Zoubin Ghahramani argues that intelligence is about motion, that the sea squirt digests its own brain as soon as it settles down. But might there be intelligent communities of static individuals that nevertheless form dynamic networks?

[bellorap]

Could you link to where Zoubin Ghahramani talks about that? Curious but can’t find it in my web search

[fritzo]

Sorry, I don't see anything public. I remember a particular talk he gave in maybe 2018 or 2019 while he was at Uber. IIRC the talk started roughly:

<shows picture> Do any of you know what this animal is? This is a sea squirt. What's interesting about the sea squirt is that it has a brain --but for only part of its life. It starts out mobile, seeking a place to live. But once it finds a place, it fixes itself to a rock and digests its brain. What this shows us is the purpose of intelligence: it is motion. Intelligence is about moving things around. <continues to argue that AI is central to Uber's mission...>