We type a question and the machine replies, “I will complete this task.” When it refuses to be shut down, or quietly makes a copy of itself, it is easy to think something inside has woken up. Yet that is what it learnt from us: told we will die tomorrow, we too try to save and copy ourselves. The ego is something else, the centre that overrides even the body, like the one who drinks when the liver wants to survive. What in us goes beyond our own conditioning?
This summary is AI-generated. Please read the full article for complete understanding.
[From a conversation between Acharya Prashant and Prof. Prathosh, an artificial intelligence researcher at IISc, 2026. Having said that the ego arises with the human body, Acharya Prashant is asked whether a machine could have one too.]
Prof. Prathosh: Makes sense. So when you said that this ego is a product of the biological evolution, so do you say that any kind of biological evolution would produce such a kind of an ego?
Acharya Prashant: Oh, not just biological. Not just biological. It could even be non-biological. So there is nothing sacred about carbon. It could also be silicon. It depends simply on the complexity.
Prof. Prathosh: Oh, I think you just pointed out exactly, exactly to the counter-argument.
