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How AI and quantum physics link up to consciousness

Illustration: Humanoid robot looking at screen covered with math formulas
Can AI help humans unravel the mysteries of consciousness and quantum physics? (Freshpixel Illustration via Bigstock)

Will artificial intelligence serve humanity — or will it spawn a new species of conscious digital beings with their own agenda?

It’s a question that has sparked scores of science-fiction plots, from “Colossus: The Forbin Project” in 1970, to “The Matrix” in 1999, to this year’s big-budget tale about AI vs. humans, “The Creator.”

The same question has also been lurking behind the OpenAI leadership struggle — in which CEO Sam Altman won out over the nonprofit board members who fired him a week earlier.

If you had to divide the AI community into go-fast and go-slow camps, those board members would be on the go-slow side, while Altman would favor going fast. And there have been rumblings about the possibility of a “breakthrough” at OpenAI that would set the field going very fast — potentially too fast for humanity’s good.

Is the prospect of AI becoming sentient and taking matters into its own hands something we should be worried about? That’s just one of the questions covered by veteran science writer George Musser in a newly published book titled “Putting Ourselves Back in the Equation.”

Musser interviewed AI researchers, neuroscientists, quantum physicists, neuroscientists and philosophers to get a reading on the quest to unravel one of life’s deepest mysteries: What is the nature of consciousness? And is it a uniquely human phenomenon?

His conclusion? There’s no reason why the right kind of AI couldn’t be as conscious as we are. “Almost everyone who thinks about this, in all these different fields, says if we were to replicate a neuron in silicon — if we were to create a neuromorphic computer that would have to be very, very true to the biology — yes, it would be conscious,” Musser says in the latest episode of the Fiction Science podcast.

But should we be worried about enabling the rise of future AI overlords? On that existential question, Musser’s view runs counter to the usual sci-fi script.

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Allen Frontiers Group awards $10M for neuroimmunology

Immune cells in spinal cord region
Immune cells (yellow and purple) fill a sinus (teal) in the outer layer of the meninges, the tissue that surrounds the brain and spinal cord. (Credit: Justin Rustenhoven / Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis)

The Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group, a division of the Seattle-based Allen Institute, is launching a research center in New York to focus on interactions between the nervous system and the immune system.

The Allen Discovery Center for Neuroimmune Interactions, headquartered at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, will receive $10 million over the course of four years from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, with a total potential for $20 million over eight years.

The award is the result of an open call for research proposals exploring fundamental questions at the intersection of neuroscience and immunology. It’s the latest open-science initiative celebrating the legacy of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who died five years ago at the age of 65 from complications of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

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‘Her Space, Her Time’ reveals hidden figures of physics

Sepia-tone photos of Leavitt, Payne-Gaposchkin, Rubin and Alexander
These are four of the women scientists profiled in "Her Space, Her Time": Henrietta Leavitt, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, Vera Rubin and Claudia Alexander. (Credits: Wikimedia; Smithsonian Institution; Rubin photo by Mark Godfrey, courtesy of AIP Emilio Segre Visual Archives; NASA)

Quick: Name a woman scientist.

Chances are the name you came up with is Marie Curie, the physicist and chemist who won two Nobel Prizes more than a century ago for the discoveries she and her husband Pierre made about radioactivity.

But who else? In a new book titled “Her Space, Her Time,” quantum physicist Shohini Ghose explains why women astronomers and physicists have been mostly invisible in the past — and profiles 20 researchers who lost out on what should have been Nobel-level fame.

“This issue around having low representation of women in physics is something that’s common all around the world,” Ghose says in the latest episode of the Fiction Science podcast. “And I’ve certainly faced it in my own experiences as a physicist growing up. I really didn’t know of any woman physicist apart from Marie Curie.”

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Brain-cell atlases point to paths for future research

Brain graphic with magnifying glass
Researchers analyzed the cellular and genetic makeup of the brain. (BRAIN Initiative / HiClipArt Graphic)

In a tour de force for neuroscience, teams of researchers have published a voluminous set of brain-cell atlases for humans and other primates.

The atlases are detailed in 21 research papers appearing in Science, Science Advances and Science Translational Medicine — and could point scientists toward new strategies for addressing mental conditions ranging from Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia to epilepsy and ADHD.

“We need to understand the specifics of the human brain if we hope to understand human diseases,” Ed Lein, a senior investigator at Seattle’s Allen Institute, said in comments provided via video.

“Most of disease research tries to create a replicate or a model of a human disease in a species that doesn’t get that disease,” Lein explained. “But if we want to understand why we get it, and what the consequences are, and how one should treat it, we need to have a deep understanding of the human brain itself.”

The studies in the package released today are part of the National Institutes of Health’s BRAIN Initiative Cell Census Network, or BICCN, a program that was launched in 2017. The Allen Institute for Brain Science has played a major role in sharing data produced by the program.

One study analyzed more than a million cells taken from 42 regions of the brain. Another study drew high-quality samples from more than 100 brain regions. Yet another study focused on samples from prenatal brain tissue. The collective efforts of the research teams characterized more than 3,000 human brain cell types.

The researchers didn’t just examine the brain cells themselves. They also ran them through DNA analysis to learn which genes appeared to be linked to the cells’ functions and dysfunctions.

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‘The Creator’: Get a reality check on AI at the movies

Madeleine Yuna Voyles as an android in "The Creator"
Madeleine Yuna Voyles plays a childlike android with strange powers in "The Creator." (© 2023 20th Century Studios)

Over the next 50 years, will humanity become too attached to the artificial-intelligence agents that dictate the course of our lives? Or is forming a deep attachment the only way we’ll survive?

Those are the sorts of questions raised by “The Creator,” Hollywood’s latest take on the potential for a robo-apocalypse. It’s a subject that has inspired a string of Terminator and Matrix movies as well as real-world warnings from the likes of Elon Musk and the late Stephen Hawking.

How close does “The Creator” come to the truth about AI’s promise and peril? We conducted a reality check with a panel of critics who are familiar with AI research and the ways in which that research percolates into popular culture. Their musings are the stuff of the latest episode of the Fiction Science podcast.

Semi-spoiler alert: We’ve tried to avoid giving away any major plot points, but if you’re obsessive about spoilers, turn away now — and come back after you’ve seen “The Creator.”

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Allen Institute hits 20 years on the open science frontier

Allen Institute HQ
The Allen Institute’s HQ is in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser)

Twenty years after Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen created the bioscience research center that bears his name, Seattle’s Allen Institute is still pushing out into new frontiers.

But this weekend, the nonprofit institute — and its hometown — are taking a little time to celebrate.

All this week, the Allen Institute has been highlighting Open Science Week, which touches upon one of the core values that Allen had in mind when he launched the institute with a $100 million donation on Sept. 16, 2003. And Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell is giving the festivities an extra boost by issuing a proclamation designating Sept. 16 as “Open Science Day” in the Emerald City.

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Tech executive faces tough job as OceanGate’s new CEO

OceanGate platform
OceanGate employees work on an air tank during the Titan submersible's development in 2017. (OceanGate File Photo)

A veteran of Seattle’s startup and investment scene, Gordon Gardiner, has been given the task of leading Oceangate through the aftermath of June’s controversial loss of the Titan submersible and its crew during a dive to the Titanic shipwreck — and eventually to the closure of operations.

Gardiner has been appointed as CEO and director of the privately held Everett-based company, which suspended commercial and exploration operations after Titan’s implosion in the depths of the North Atlantic Ocean. OceanGate’s previous CEO and co-founder, Stockton Rush, was among the five crew members who died.

The new CEO’s primary task is to lead OceanGate through the ongoing investigations and closure of the company’s operations, OceanGate said in a statement. The company already has shut down its Facebook page and X / Twitter accounts, and its website has been reduced to a single black-and-white page announcing the suspension of operations.

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Today’s archaeologists make Indiana Jones look ancient

Harrison Ford with whip in "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny"
Indiana Jones (played by Harrison Ford) wields his trademark whip in "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny." (© 2022 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM)

As the world’s best-known fictional archaeologist goes after what may be his last ancient mystery in “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” new generations of real-life archaeologists are ready to dig in with 21st-century technologies and sensibilities.

Harrison Ford, the 80-year-old actor who’s played Indiana Jones for 42 years, has said “Dial of Destiny” will be his last sequel in the series. And this one is a doozy: The dial-like gizmo that gives the movie its name is the Antikythera Mechanism, a real-life device that ancient Greeks used to predict eclipses and other astronomical events. The Lance of Longinus, the Tomb of Archimedes and the Ear of Dionysius figure in the plot as well.

Indy and his mysteries will be missed. Sara Gonzalez, a curator of archaeology at Seattle’s Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, says her favorite movie about her own field is “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” the 1981 film in which Indiana Jones (played by Harrison Ford) made his debut. But that’s not because it’s true to life.

Gonzalez said researchers from the University of Washington’s Department of Anthropology, where she’s an associate professor, recently took a field trip to a local cinema where “Raiders” was playing.

“They have something called HeckleVision, where you can text onto the screen and see it,” she said. “There was this great, fun discussion, happening virtually live, with a whole bunch of anthropologists sitting and watching a movie that we love to deride. But we still kind of love the story and the angle, and we also love educating people about what’s real and what’s fictional about archaeology.”

That’s the subject of the latest episode of the Fiction Science podcast, focusing on the intersection of science and fiction.

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Coast Guard begins investigation of Titan sub tragedy

Satellite image of ships involved in Titan sub search on June 22
Satellite imagery from June 22 shows some of the ships that were involved in the search for OceanGate’s Titan sub. (Maxar Photo)

The U.S. Coast Guard says it plans to recover debris from OceanGate’s Titan submersible, which was lost along with its crew during a dive to the Titanic shipwreck, as part of its investigation into the catastrophe.

“At this time, the priority of the investigation is to recover items from the seafloor,” Capt. Jason Neubauer, who is leading the marine board of investigation, said today during a Boston news briefing.

Debris from the submersible lies about 12,500 feet beneath the surface of the North Atlantic Ocean, about 400 miles from the Newfoundland coast and only about 1,600 feet from the Titanic’s bow. The sub, built by Everett, Wash.-based OceanGate, was on its way to the world’s best-known shipwreck when it lost contact with its support ship a week ago.

An international search-and-rescue operation made use of remotely operated vehicles to find debris from the Titan sub on June 22. ROVs also will be used to recover wreckage from Titan. “I’m not going to give the details of what the recovery has been to date, but the resources are on site and capable of recovering the debris,” Neubauer told reporters.

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What’s next in the tragic tale of OceanGate’s Titan sub?

Test run for Titan sub
OceanGate tows its Titan sub out to a Puget Sound test run in preparation for its first Titanic dive. (OceanGate File Photo)

It’s too soon to answer all the questions raised by this week’s loss of OceanGate’s Titan submersible and its five-person crew during their dive to the Titanic shipwreck — but the questions are being asked nevertheless.

An international team led by the U.S. Coast Guard is still surveying the site in the wake of June 22’s determination that the sub, built by Everett, Wash.-based OceanGate, was destroyed due to the catastrophic collapse of its pressure chamber. A remotely operated vehicle identified debris from the sub scattered just 1,600 feet from the Titanic’s iconic bow.

Some of the ships and planes that were involved in the search have left the scene, 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland, but others are continuing to survey a stretch of seafloor 12,500 feet beneath the surface of the North Atlantic. It’s a hard-to-reach region that now serves as the graveyard for two at-sea disasters.

“We will do the best we can to fully map what’s down there,” Paul Hankins, the director of the U.S. Navy’s salvage operations, said during the news briefing announcing the Titan’s destruction.

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