It's the Great Fear of Our Time. I'm Mathematically Sure It Won't Happen.

A 19th-century investigation funded by Leland Stanford used precisely timed cameras to study a horse’s trot. The resulting photographs showed that all four feet are off the ground during a moment when the legs reach inward toward the horse’s belly. This finding contradicted common depictions in paintings and carousel figures. The photographic work also led to Eadweard Muybridge’s rapid display of images, which helped create the motion picture illusion. The piece then connects the gait discovery to a modern debate about whether artificial intelligence could reach consciousness, including public disputes about whether current approaches will or already have achieved it.

"In the 1870s, Leland Stanford, the railroad magnate and benefactor of the university that bears his name, funded an effort to find out. The answer shocked many equestrian experts and artists: The horse's feet do leave the ground together, but not when outstretched as commonly depicted in paintings and carousels; the feet do so when they reach inward, toward the horse's belly."

"To understand the mechanics of the horse's gait, his team placed a series of cameras along a stretch of dirt road on what would later become the university's campus. The cameras were attached to trip wires so that when the horse passed each one, it would take a perfectly timed photograph. The clarifying photos would go on to generate something even more exciting for the photographer, Eadweard Muybridge."

"To display his photographs in rapid succession, Muybridge invented a device that birthed the motion picture. Audiences were wowed by the illusion of motion that emerged in this relatively simple manner. Wowed but not fooled, for everyone understood what was happening inside Muybridge's machine: Still photos were displayed one after the other."

"Surprisingly, this discovery about a horse's gait sheds light on a much more modern debate-whether A.I. is on a path to consciousness. Opinions abound, as do opinions about those opinions. California Rep. Ted Lieu was recently pilloried on social media for suggesting that our current approach to A.I. will not reach consciousness. Influential iconoclastic thinker Richard Dawkins was then pilloried for suggesting that perhaps it already has."

Read at Slate Magazine