Robinson's Podcast 187 - Michael Levin: The New Era of Cognitive Biorobotics
Jan 8, 2024
Michael Levin, Biology Professor at Tufts University and faculty at Harvard, discusses the nature of cognition, working with Daniel Dennett, defining robots, a new class of robot called Anthrobot, and moral obligations to biological robots.
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Goals Scale Smoothly, Not Binary
- Intentionality and 'goals' scale from simple homeostatic loops to metacognition without sharp boundaries.
- Denying cognition to simple systems ignores continuous developmental and evolutionary origins.
Test Systems Before Dismissing Cognition
- Don’t dismiss systems as non-cognitive without experiments; apply behavioral tools to find trainability and memory.
- Empirical testing can reveal memory and learning, unlocking novel therapeutic control modalities.
Self-Modeling Exists At Low Levels
- Self-modeling is not exclusive to brains; single cells and minimal systems can model aspects of themselves.
- Subjective perspectives emerge early and can exist in surprising minimal agents.