Daniel Dennett: 'Why civilisation is more fragile than we realised'

Daniel Dennett: 'Why civilisation is more fragile than we realised' Getty Images Daniel Dennett tackled some of the most vexing questions about the experience of being human Before his recent death, the influential philosopher Daniel Dennett spoke to the BBC about his lifelong quest to understand human experience – and why he saw new dangers from AI. In the science fiction story in Hoenderdos's documentary, scientists create an extra Dennett: alongside the original brain in a vat, his mind is duplicated as a "digital twin". Getty Images Dennett warned AI-powered "counterfeit people" pose a danger of social vandalism There's an irony, here, in the fact that Dennett spent decades arguing against those trying to carve out some elusive category of "humanness" that only our minds can possess. It's dangerous to obsess over whether AI will achieve "general intelligence", with all the cognitive flexibility of a human being, let alone something greater. Civilisation, Dennett told me, "is more fragile than we realised" – and all the more precious for this.