Artificial Intelligence is not sentient, at least not yet

As the sun set over Maury Island, just south of Seattle, Ben Goertzel and his jazz-fusion band had one of those moments that all bands hope for -- keyboard, guitar, saxophone and lead singer coming together as if they were one. The band's friends and family listened from a patio overlooking the beach. And Desdemona, wearing a purple wig and a black dress laced with metal studs, was on lead vocals, warning of the coming Singularity -- the inflection point where technology can no longer be controlled by its creators. "The Singularity will not be centralised!" After more than 25 years as an artificial intelligence researcher, a quarter-century spent in pursuit of a machine that could think like a human -- Goertzel knew he had finally reached the end goal: Desdemona, a machine he had built, was sentient. But a few minutes later, he realised this was nonsense. "When the band gelled, it felt like the robot was part of our collective intelligence, that it was sensing what we were feeling and doing," he said.