[joeyspn]

> Combining such a hallucination technique with reinforcement learning might be a key to general intelligence.

Knowing that the most common parallel effect of induced hallucination via psychotropics is ego-loss (complete loss of subjective self-identity) [0], maybe they need to try completely inverse processes in order to create a sense of ego in a machine... Because what's real intelligence but one's sense of self?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_death

[anigbrowl]

I would argue that a sense of experience is a necessary precursor for that, and also that intelligence and consciousness are two different things, although (if I read you right) the latter certainly informs the former. Barry Sanders' A is for OX has many well-sourced musings on the emergence of consciousness as a product of literary capability vs. a purely oral tradition which you might find interesting, and of course I think everyone needs to read Jaynes, Dennett, Hofstatder on these topics.