Google CTO: A unifying theory of life, intelligence, and technology

Google CTO: A unifying theory of life, intelligence, and technology View our Twitter (X) feedView our Youtube channelView our Instagram feedView our Substack feedView our Spotify feed Google CTO: A unifying theory of life, intelligence, and technology Blaise Agüera y Arcas argues that function defines life more than material does, and that AI belongs in the same story Google CTO: A unifying theory of life, intelligence, and technology Blaise Agüera y Arcas argues that function defines life more than material does, and that AI belongs in the same story Google CTO: A unifying theory of life, intelligence, and technology Blaise Agüera y Arcas argues that function defines life more than material does, and that AI belongs in the same story Depression has tripled in the last 15 years. Arthur Brooks says he knows the real cause Arthur Brooks studies happiness for a living, and he says the epidemic of depression and anxiety among young adults comes down to one culprit: a meaning crisis. The philosophy of liberalism and how it has transformed our institutions The gap between knowing better and doing better, and how to close it The science, medicine, and mythology of menstruation and menopause The rule of 20%: How to find the sweet spot for improved performance The world’s greatest mathematician explains 6 essential concepts of math Psychologist: The blueprint for developing a healthy relationship with your emotions Depression has tripled in the last 15 years.

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I am the CTO of Technology and Society at Google and the founder of an organization there called Paradigms of Intelligence, which does basic research on AI. I also have just published a book called What is Intelligence? Today on Big Think, we're going to talk about life, functionalism, and how to live with AGI.

So after thinking about it for a while, the definition of life that I've come up with, and I should caveat this, that every biologist's definition of life is going to be different. This is not a term that there's any consensus about. We actually wrote a paper about that in which we interviewed all kinds of interdisciplinary researchers.

And for 60 experts, there are 60 definitions in there. But mine, for what it's worth, is that life is self-constructing computation. That complexifies through symbiosis.

Let's start off with self-constructing computation. A lot of people, when they hear computing, they have associations with a very specific technology that began in 1945. They think of it as an applied science.