The Panpsycast Philosophy Podcast · Jack Symes | Andrew Horton, Oliver Marley, Rose de Castellane, Gregory Mill

Episode 140, 'Interpersonal Art' with Harry Drummond (Part II - Further Analysis and Discussion)

March 9, 2025·32 min·2 clips

Harry Drummond argues AI can't share human aesthetic experiences, even if granted consciousness.

Can AI share the tango? Harry Drummond takes up that question after granting, for the sake of argument, that an AI could be individually conscious. That premise helps, but it does not settle much. The discussion keeps circling experiences made between people through analysis, reaction, and timing. Think tango, or a band. In those cases, the artwork is treated less like an object and more like something that happens between the participants. AI puts pressure on that picture fast. The problem is whether it has the concepts needed to read another participant, not just whether it can calculate the next move. Fatigue becomes the sharp test. If AI does not tire the way humans do, it may detect tiredness without grasping what tiredness means in a body. Oil running low is not exhaustion. Mechanical wear works as an analogy for a while, then gives out when the speakers get to aching muscles, bones, and pain. That gap is the philosophical trouble. The conversation pushes against the brain-in-a-vat confidence that mind can be treated as computation sealed away from the body. Maybe embodiment is doing real work here. If shared aesthetic life depends on vulnerability, discomfort, and reaction, artificial consciousness may still fall short. The tone stays careful, with dry jokes and a patron interlude before returning to Drummond's work on aesthetic experiences with others and 4E aesthetics. The outro names the paper and forthcoming chapter. The episode leaves a question open: can AI genuinely share art without the bodily conditions humans bring to it?

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