Podcast about the essay, where I argue that an artificial intelligence modeled on a specific human cannot independently preserve the human particular developmental continuity after their histories diverge. Imagine that a person provides an AI system with every available detail of their life: memories, written messages, private thoughts, personal conversations, verbal and nonverbal expressions, preferences, values, decisions, and the consequences of those decisions. Imagine further that the system receives complete information about the person’s physical condition, including how bodily sensations, emotions, illness, and fatigue have influenced their thoughts. At the moment of activation, the AI might appear to be a psychological replica of the human from whom it was constructed. Yet divergence may begin with its very first experience. The human may confront the uncanny existence of an artificial replica, while the AI confronts the realization that it is a replica. These are related but fundamentally different experiences. How would either experience transform the human or the AI, and could the other system fully reproduce that transformation? More importantly, what happens when the human and the AI stop exchanging information and begin living separately?
