The unbearable unlightness of AI

There is a continuing assumption — a faith, really — that at somefuture moment, perhaps only a decade or two away, perhaps even nearer than that, artificial intelligence will, by means yet unknown, achieve consciousness. A window will open on the computer’s black box, and light will stream in. The universe will take a new turn, as the inanimate becomes, for a second time, animate.

George Lakoff, the linguist who cowroteMetaphors We Live By, says it ain’t going to happen. In a fascinating artic...