RIA Novosti: Tatiana Chernigovskaya: man may stop being the "king of nature"

Both forums were attended by Tatiana Chernigovskaya, Head of the Institute for Cognitive Studies of St Petersburg University, Member of the Russian Academy of Education, Honoured Worker of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation. 

In an exclusive interview to RIA Novosti, the renowned neuroscientist spoke about the prospects of research of consciousness, her attitude to animals, AI, GPT and the latest biotechnologies, education and upbringing of children in the modern world of social media, about her understanding of good, evil and conscience, development of language, memory and intuition. Interview by Olga Lipich. 

Did the international conferences in Dharmsala and Kathmandu, whose academic organiser was neurophysiologist Konstantin Anokhin, Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, succeed in identifying the most promising methods of research of consciousness and in coming closer to a general understanding of this phenomenon?

 There have been signs of progress so far. And the conference that just took place in Kathmandu this year showed it. However, we cannot expect to agree on what we mean by consciousness within one or two conferences. That is because very different things are understood and interpreted by different scientists as "consciousness". It is a long and winding road. 

So, what is the progress in your opinion? 

The progress is in the use of methods sensitive to this topic that help us study consciousness (and again what exactly is considered to be consciousness?) in animals. Humans at least have a language, we can describe our sensations ourselves, we have an understandable tool. With animals you cannot speak any language — so you have to focus on behaviour. And behaviour can be caused by different reasons. And that is where the danger lies. 

What danger? 

The constant danger I see lies in interpretations. We assume that the experimental data have been obtained by qualified and honest researchers, but then there comes a point when we have to explain what all this data means. And then it starts: this was a memory, and it was in a bad state, or, on the contrary, it was the leader of the group and therefore behaved in this way. And someone will say that no, that it should be interpreted in a completely different way. So, there might be a hundred different explanations! That’s a bad thing, and it is not clear how to avoid it. 

It is obvious that to select tests that would give more or less definite answers it is necessary to do a lot of work. For example, if an animal can do this, then it is very likely to have a certain ability. And I see that this work is already going on. 

What are the goals and benefits of such work? Will research into animal consciousness satisfy our academic interest, affect our understanding of human consciousness and its management for the sake of harmony and happiness on the planet, help people to come to a more humane treatment of other living creatures? 

All of the above. Firstly, there is knowledge for the sake of knowledge. Then, there is fundamental science, which does not have to be applicable. If Michael Faraday had imagined what would come out of what he discovered, he would have been very surprised. Giving academic institutions and fundamental scientists the task to invent something and expect a quick applied output is a very bad approach. We want to know who we are. Is consciousness a phenomenon? Or maybe there is no consciousness at all — we just invented it for ourselves and now we are trying to find it? 

And if we look at applied things, understanding of consciousness is, of course, necessary for medicine. It is very necessary — and now especially — in order to protect ourselves from the danger of something similar to consciousness that may develop in artificial intelligence (artificial consciousness. — Editor’s note). We need to understand: what is it, what does it look like, what and why are we afraid of it? 

Finally, coming back to animals, we have certain moral obligations towards them. They are our neighbours and we need to know who they are. Are they just some "bio-automatic machines" big or small? Or do they feel pain, joy, compassion, do they have some kind of inner world? By the way, we should not think that all people on the planet have a serious and nice inner world. It is still unknown, whose inner world is bigger and more complicated, animals can have quite a complex inner world. And then the questions arise: how should we treat them, how should we protect them, what should we do with industrial-scale animal husbandry? 

What do you personally think, do all animals have consciousness or only the higher animals — mammals, birds? Which of them experience emotions and feelings similar to the human ones, suffer, fall in love, get attached, get bored and so on? 

I have no doubts about the higher animals. Dolphins, elephants, horses, cows, dogs, and all the pets that have lived with humans for thousands of years. 

So, being close to a person affects the development of consciousness? 

Everything affects the development of everything. But whether it affects it in a good way is also a question. For example, I have a yard full of cats, they fight there, they do not always have enough food, and it would seem a good idea to find them homes to protect them, keep them warm, pet them, give them all kinds of food treats. But think of how boring it is! In the street, they have a life going on. 

Yes, but if a cat does not like it at home in satiety and boredom, it will probably run away, and we will not catch it. However, Buddhists believe that consciousness is present not only in cats and other higher species of animals, but in all living creatures in general, including insects. Do you agree with them? 

I don’t know if I agree or not. It’s about intuition: In the higher ones I just see it, I can’t prove it though. 

What do you think of the New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness and Humane Treatment of Animals, signed this year by a number of consciousness researchers, including Academician Anokhin? 

Think of foie gras — how this delicacy is made from poor geese and ducks, with food shoved into them to make their livers bigger. It’s a real torture! 

Foie gras should be banned, man should not torment our lesser brethren like that!

It would be nice if man did not torment his own human brothers. Animals are of course completely innocent and helpless. 

They seem more helpless than humans. We do not yet know if animals have methods of coping with stress and suffering like humans do, with their prayer, meditation, compassion, intellectual exercises, will trainings, and so on? 

Yes, I completely agree. Anyway, if I saw a person abusing a cat or a dog, I can’t even imagine what I would do. 

So, what is "consciousness" for you now? When you use this word, what do you put into it? 

It depends on the language, the person, and the things we agree on. The question is very complicated, because for one person consciousness is about having colourful cucumbers and tomatoes, while for another it is about concepts of the structure of the universe. It is a matter of convention, of agreement. For example, His Holiness the Dalai Lama and all Buddhist scholars believe that the concept of consciousness includes feeling. However, in other scientific approaches, feeling is one thing, rationality is another, and also there is consciousness, awareness of something, "thinking about thinking," reflection, and so on. 

At the moment, I would put it this way: consciousness is the ability to reason, to draw conclusions, to evaluate yourself, to try to understand what the other person is thinking, and to act accordingly. But I cannot guarantee that I will give you the same answer the day after tomorrow. 

At the beginning of the dialogue with scientists, the Dalai Lama said that he was ready to reconsider the foundations of Buddhism if it turns out that they contradict the findings of neuroscience. Are neuroscientists ready to revise some of their views if it turns out that aspects of Buddhist doctrine that used to seem far-fetched suddenly receive modern scientific evidence? 

There are many different kinds of scientists. And there are those who not only will not reconsider anything after His Holiness’ announcements, but will not even think about it. They will electrocute the poor frog’s leg, fixing the conditioned reflex until his own death, even if Immanuel Kant, Arthur Schopenhauer, Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr together appear before them. It is therefore impossible to speak in general terms about scientists, as well as about anyone else. 

But about myself and the people I respect and am friends with, I can say that yes. I am open. And if people I respect and serious scientists tell me that there is something here that I need to dig, then I will do it. That is, I am ready to reconsider. 

Why did you offer to collaborate with the Canadian-British psychologist Clara Colombatto, who spoke at the Nepal conference on "Attributions of consciousness to artificial agent"? Do you consider this problem relevant?

While I was listening to her presentation, I thought that a similar topic could be given to our master’s or doctoral student (of the Institute for Cognitive Studies of St Petersburg University. — Editor’s note). Young people may not be aware of the fact that there is such an interesting cutting-edge topic. If our young experts get involved in it, the whole society will benefit. 

What could this co-operation be? 

It could be research such as surveys, like the one presented by Clara Colombatto at the conference. Surveys not just ‘how do you feel about something’, but based on specific scales, with carefully designed questions. To do this, first of all, it is necessary to work with the research literature, to find out who has already studied what and how in this field. The groups of interviewees can be different: say, pupils of strong grammar schools or students of different faculties, because it is one thing when a journalist or a historian answers a question, and another when a mathematician does. The social cross-section is important. All of this needs to be well thought out in order to ensure that the results of the surveys are interpreted correctly in future. 

Additionally, there can be studies that involve equipment. For example, my institute uses the eye movement tracking technique where you can observe and track where the participants’ eyes are directed, which shows where their focus goes, what information is interesting for them and what not. Let us say, it is possible to figure out if I find the "face" of a particular artificial intelligence interesting or not at all? At the same time, we can record what is going on in the mind of a research participant, with the help of encephalography. And all this can be supplemented by augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), special glasses and other devices. This is already the highest pilotage. 

In our institute, the defence of academic papers is based on the following principle: it cannot be just a philosophical talk, the results of experiments must be presented. 

Longitudinal studies (long-term studies of the same group. — Editor’s note) are very interesting. After all, large language models, GPTs, develop at a tremendous speed, and people get used to them. Clara Colombatto cited figures that show that the number of people who perceive something in a certain way, for example AI, changes dramatically over time. I am sure that if you survey young people now and again in a year or two, the numbers will change. The speed of both the development of these artificial systems and their entering our lives is very fast. They are already being used to write articles, academic papers, and so on. This new world has already arrived, we must cope with it somehow. And a serious question is how do people themselves assess its influence and their role in it? Are we still the kings of nature, or are we not quite kings anymore? 

The figure Clara Colombatto gives is a striking 67%, which is an absolute majority of respondents of different social status in America who said that artificial intelligence has consciousness. I had the opposite view of an opinion of the majority. How about you? 

Likewise. But this is America. It is very interesting how people in other parts of the world will respond, how people of different cultures understand large language models, artificial intelligence, whether they endow it with consciousness, how they regard it in general. This is the subject of a large international cross-cultural study. To see how different countries (perceive AI. — Editor’s note). For example, in Russia, Nepal, India, Japan, China, and in different parts of China. China is a high-tech country, but not entirely so: there are regions where people grow rice and have never communicated with any GPT, just like on some islands far from civilisation. 

Another interesting topic is that Augmented Reality (AR) creates the conditions for a certain perception of artificial intelligence. AI is not "in the flesh" anywhere, it is not visible, it is disembodied. But it appears on your picture as alive. Does this change our attitude to AI? Is it important for an AI to have a body? And what kind of body? Let us remember when robot dogs with legs turned the other way or robot spiders appeared, people did not want to have them in their homes! Am I going to take home an iron cockroach the size of a dog, even if it is useful in the household and I can switch it off at any time? No, I am not. And I do not want some artificial octopus living in my bathroom and doing my laundry. It is okay for an anthropoid, but not for some unknown animal. So strong are our psychological and mythological perceptions. 

The study of consciousness is not about humans. That is why conferences on this topic are of existential importance. And of great importance to different sciences. Who are we and what are we turning into? We were entrusted with the planet — for some reason we decided so — but, first of all, nobody entrusted us with anything, and secondly, what have we done with what (as we think) we were entrusted with? It is almost impossible to live on this planet! 

By the way, referring to ancient Buddhist predictions, the master of the Dzogchen tradition of the Nyingma Sangnak Rinpoche School from Nepal’s Adzom monastery, which was visited by the participants in the conference on consciousness, said that in 2030 the world will face hard times of great wars, and only by accumulating virtues in 2024 can people prevent the catastrophe. What do you think about this? 

That we, people, are mostly sitting idly by or playing some idiotic games instead. 

But you, scientists, conduct research and conferences on consciousness — they have both academic and practical benefits for peace keeping. Should they be continued? 

Yes, of course. Such international academic conferences on consciousness should be continued. I am sure that this has a universal significance, an existential meaning. Because it is about how the cognitive, thinking world works: are we able to control it, to what extent and in what direction? 

Returning to artificial intelligence, is the Russian translation of this term correct? Shouldn’t the term be changed to a more accurate one? 

It is wrong — and we should change it, but nothing works. Artificial intelligence experts have been talking about this for 20 years. Artificial intelligence is just a programme that can solve problems, and nothing else. And what we are discussing now is not artificial intelligence, it is something else, otherwise why would we start talking about whether it has consciousness? We are not paranoid: if we are just talking about a programme that solves certain tasks, then what are we worried about? But we do worry because it is important for us not to lose control. Programmes are becoming more and more sophisticated, self-learning, and it is getting to the point where sometimes their creators do not understand what these programmes are doing, what logic they have — is it still the Aristotelian logic that we have built in, or is it something else? 

There was a wake-up call when the programme beat a human in a game of Go (in 2016, there was a historic match between the AlphaGo computer programme developed by the British company Google DeepMind, and Lee Sedol, a world-renowned Korean ninth dan professional. — Editor’s note). The programme made a move that no one had ever made before. The experts could not understand where this move, which was incredibly beautiful, came from. It was a different logic; it was even described as "alien". 

Can a robot dog with artificial intelligence replace a person’s regular pet in future, or can a robot housewife replace a wife? 

Well, if we are going to stop living on this planet, then we are moving in the right direction. And if we are going to keep living, why do we need others to solve problems for us, to create pictures, music, scripts, and so on? As you know, Ludwig van Beethoven’s symphony No 10 has already been finished for him. And in Hollywood, there are already riots of scriptwriters who risk to lose their jobs because of script-writing programmes, while instead of real actors their electronic copies are playing. But if we have a real Albrecht Dürer, why would we need another "Dürer"? What are we going to do with the rest of our time on this planet? 

When will there be portable mind-reading MRIs? 

They will not. No, well, of course, you can do something to entertain the public even now. But if we speak seriously, since I work at the Brain Institute.... well, when I look at a brain, I am expected to know a lot about it. For example, if a person is listening to music, I know what area of the brain is active.  So, if they show me a picture and ask me what the person is doing right now, I will say: it is very likely that they are listening to music. But I will never say what kind of music they are listening to. I will never say they are thinking about something in particular. Specific things I will not say. 

So, you can’t tell if a person is listening to Rammstein or Mozart? 

No, we can’t. At least, I can’t imagine how it could be. 

The difficulty with MRI machines and similar equipment is not so much that they are expensive. Let us assume we found the money, created or purchased such a device and put people in it one by one, and what happens next? What comes out of it? Numbers, actually. How to decipher them, what do they mean, who will decipher them? This is a huge job, very complex programmes that need to be studied for a long time. These must be specialists of the highest level, with great experience, who will also consult with their colleagues. And most importantly, what is the need for such a portable device? 

You know, for example, so you don’t get scammed. At the market. 

It is unnecessary. And I would even say dangerous. Who knows how it is going to turn out. 

What are the best activities to keep your brain active for as long as possible? 

To live as rich and full a life as possible: to socialise, walk, travel, read, watch, listen, to get a variety of experiences and a variety of neural networks. Different countries, different people, different languages and so on. 

What if you are a miner? If there is no possibility of regular travelling to different countries and listening toTeodor Currentzis? 

A miner? Good: read good books, watch good films, open your computer, get a list of recommendations from somebody who is an expert. And don’t immediately rush to super trendy music concerts or arthouse cinema. You have to go a long way before you begin to understand them. Everything takes work and time. 

Is there innate intelligence or is it an acquired thing? 

I think there is. But that does not mean that everybody thinks so. I would say that there is a certain quality of the brain. You can only be born an Einstein or a Mozart, you cannot become one. However, you can fail to become one if you and your wonderful brain do not get into the right environment in time and do not work hard. For example, if we imagine that Johann Sebastian Bach had been born not into the family of a hereditary musician Bach, but into a family of a farmer instead, he probably would not have seen a harpsichord, he would not have even known this word. And we would not have had Bach. So, you also need be lucky. 

Is evolutionary development of the human brain possible, and if so, when is the next leap? 

Only God knows. 

Is there a way to speed this process up? 

No, forget it. We shouldn’t interfere in any way. 

But now, after all the breakthroughs in genetics, there must be research that attempts to carry out some kind of eugenics, right? 

Extremely dangerous. If we know that a given person has a gene, conditionally one gene, although it is never one gene, which in this family leads to schizophrenia, then theoretically we can say: let us remove this gene and the problem is solved. But there is a gigantic net of these genes! Let us say you remove it, but what will you destroy along with it? And how and when will you find out about it?! Maybe 150 years from now in some great-nephew with eight legs. Genes do not exist in separate boxes, so you can take a box out without anyone noticing. They are all interconnected. That is why working with the genome is a very dangerous thing. In fact, we do not know what will happen next. It is not without reason that there are ethical committees prohibiting these experiments. 

How dangerous is it then that mankind has been eating numerous genetically modified products for years? 

Geneticists I trust, such as Nikolay Yankovsky (specialist in genomics and biotechnology, Director for Science at Vavilov Institute of General Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. — Editor’s note) or Evgeny Rogaev (Head of the Laboratory of Evolutionary Genomics of Vavilov Institute of General Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, twice winner of the State Prize of the Russian Federation. — Editor’s note), said that it is a completely different story. What you eat does not affect your genes that way. This does not mean that genetically modified foods are good — maybe they are bad, but not for that reason. 

Reproductive technologies are developing rapidly: there is already an artificial uterus, and sex cells are created from somatic cells, so that in future it is possible to have a child, for example, from two men or from one person at all. What will it be: hermaphroditism, budding? 

Let us get a psychiatrist to look into it. 

Will such an embryo have a soul, will it grow into a full-fledged human being? Or can it be just a biomaterial grown from somatic cells, for example, for organs or for the embodiment of artificial intelligence? 

Terrible and very dangerous. Let us answer the other question that precedes all this. Have we decided to stop living here? We have lived here and that is it, that is enough? So, we let the electronic monsters write paintings and novels, make films, sculptures for us. These networks can do everything without us. Oh, and we will not give birth anymore? Will they give birth for us? Or grow someone from somatic cells? Great! Why don’t we leave just a little bit for ourselves to do?! These questions are no longer practical, they are existential. 

People are more and more insistently trying on the role of the Creator, developing artificial intelligence and robots, exoskeletons, growing artificial organs and cells, seemingly for good scientific and medical purposes. But does it always turn out to be good? What do you think about this as a scientist and as a religious person?

It is ambivalent. On the one hand, medicine and technology have come so far that a lot of people who would not have been alive a long time ago if it were not for these developments are living perfectly well. One person has their heart or kidney replaced, another has a knee or hip joint changed, a third has their eyesight or hearing restored, not to mention their teeth. Our colleague Alexander Kaplan (Professor, Head of the Laboratory for Neurophysiology and Neuro-Computer Interfaces at Lomonosov Moscow State University. — Editor’s note) is working on technologies that help people after severe strokes and head injuries, after which a person lies like a stone and unable to get in touch with the world. Let us remember Stephen Hawking (famous British astrophysicist and populariser of science, paralysed by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, which he was diagnosed with when he was a student. — Editor’s note) who was the best brain on the planet: nearly all of his body failed, yet he continued to lecture with the help of synthesisers and other devices. And Alexander Pushkin would not have died after his duel with d’Anthès if medicine had been at today’s level. So thanks to the technologists for that. 

On the other hand, there is the question to what point we are going to invade nature? And when what we are talking about is not just treatment of illnesses or life extension, but reproduction, all of the things you have listed, artificiality, I find it very disturbing. I hear different opinions from respected geneticists. Some say that there is nothing wrong with artificial reproductive technologies, we just tweak something there, say, remove the gene for hereditary depression, and everything will be fine. But others are afraid that you can never be sure what consequences you will have by removing the gene responsible for schizophrenia. 

Achievements in the field of biotechnology, genetics, AI, as well as discoveries of physicists and many other researchers, can certainly be used by different authorities, poles of power in the geopolitical arena to gain advantages over competitors, for military purposes. What do you think about this? 

I have no doubt that this is the case. Even with the example of the ongoing debates about artificial intelligence. Here is a major player like Elon Musk. He wrote a letter suggesting taking a break from AI development to think it all over. And a lot of people signed the letter. However, a very significant part of specialists did not sign it, and do you know why? They reasoned that it should be not just a break, but a total ban on AI. Because it is a highly dangerous programme. But there is an answer to this decision from a "rival company": you are going to set up a total ban for yourself, but I will not give it up. And that is it. So, to say that we will now take a breath and give up these dangerous developments is ridiculous, because there is always someone who will continue working on it. 

A trap into which mankind has pushed itself. When, according to the Abrahamic religions, Eve and Adam disobeyed God and ate the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, was this not the beginning of science? 

A little treat, huh? Good question, I have also been thinking about that. How to interpret that metaphor in a modern way. Because it is not like she did anything wrong, it is like: "Let’s find out how this works." 

And then, millennia later, this is what happened. 

If we look at this metaphor in this way, should we close all the academies of science? In general, rigoristically-minded people say: you and your science are dragging us to hell. People, who are strongly religious, look critically at all this: in the past, strong men used to fight each other off with axes, but now it is enough to press a button with one finger and the whole planet will explode. But if we take it seriously and add more clichés: you can use a knife to cut off a piece of cheese, and you can kill your neighbour, it all depends on how to use this or that tool, including the achievements of science. 

Let us remember Immanuel Kant, who recently turned 300 years old and used to say: the starry sky above your head and the moral law inside! You cannot steal, not because you will be caught and punished, but because it is shameful. 

In your opinion, are there any practical reasons for the emergence of spiritual, vertical orientations, ideas about God and religious foundations in human mind. For example, in order not to go mad from the mortality, loneliness, not to kill each other, and so on?

 I do not know if "practical" is the right word here. But I will go sideways: there are no cultures or peoples on our planet that do not have some kind of religious beliefs. There are no such examples. Some believe in one God, some in idols, some in a piece of wood, others in ancestors, or in something else. 

Is there any way to explain it other than the theistic "God-given" or atheistic "social management tool"? Could it be that religiousness is an innate existential desire to expand, to continue, to serve, or to be connected to something greater than the perishable self? 

We need to go beyond the material world, because there is something more important for us. This is some probably very deep human characteristic. And I would say that it is a part of human consciousness. But then we have to ask a second question: what about our lesser brothers? 

Maybe animals have their own ideas about God, too. 

One is supposed to reply that serious science does not deal with such things; there are limits to crazy questions. However, brave and honest science should at least think in this direction too. 

And why do we have such concepts as good and evil, conscience, truth and lies, and the principle that unites different ethical systems, "don’t do to another what you don’t want to do to yourself"? 

I can only assume that these are some basic things. Even the smallest child knows what is bad and what is good. Of course, not in a big philosophical sense, but in a simple everyday sense. 

Moreover, even a pet knows this: a dog will not just bite, and if it feels that it has unintentionally caused pain, it will look guilty and try to make you feel better. Where is this empathy rooted, the understanding that to hurt is bad, but to please is good? 

So, the ideas about good and evil are some very basic, fundamental settings. But where exactly they are placed and how they are incorporated, science does not know yet. 

Somehow, I came across the phrase that the altruism so much lauded in religions is an abnormality of the brain. Could this be true? 

No, it is not true.  Moreover, at an international conference on animal consciousness in Kathmandu, Nicholas Humphrey (a world-famous Cambridge neuropsychologist. — Editor’s note) showed us a documentary film about a monkey who rescues another monkey who has lost consciousness on a railway track: in fact, it performs resuscitation procedures, puts it in water, shakes it, stabs it, and it comes back to life. How do you explain that? 

It did not have to do that at all, it could have gone about its own business, chewing nuts or stealing mirrors. Its actions, by the way (to answer the previous question), show that it knows what is good and what is bad. The monkey has a picture of the world in which it is necessary to prevent its mate or just another monkey from being killed. 

Of course, if all we want to destroy everyone and win, then yes, altruism is no good. But if we have a different world, then altruism is good, and very much so. 

It seems to me that today altruism is the only way for the world to survive at all.

Of course. I agree. Developing altruism is the only way to keep the world going. 

Have the morals of mankind evolved, improved over time? 

No, absolutely, I do not see it. 

And what about the fact that we stopped organising brutal public spectacles, mass executions in squares, cutting off hands, feet and heads, as in the Middle Ages? 

In some places we have stopped, and in some places we have not. Remember the Cambodian Khmer Rouge or throat slitting on camera and then showing it on the screens. 

However, it seems to me, the improvement can happen in our era thanks to the development of education and mass communication, when one can preach widely and deeply, educate and enlighten, raising awareness and morals? 

That yes, it could happen. And this kind of conferences about consciousness actually play a great role in the moral development of mankind. Because after them, you cannot step on an ant — you try to go around it. 

Children today are growing up in an abundance of information, also thanks to personalised gadgets. How does this affect the psyche and personality development? Should they be shielded from it, or in today’s world it is no longer possible to get the knowledge necessary for life without them? 

We need to distinguish between information and knowledge: information is not knowledge. But we already live in this digital, informational world, and children enter it very early. So, it is useless to say "I don’t like it", to play the game of "let’s ban the Internet". It has never been possible to completely ban anything like that. But it is possible to limit the use of gadgets and the Internet — in terms of time and content — of course. And this is demonstrated by the rule of some expensive schools, where you will only be allowed to use a gadget for a short while in the evening — to call your mum and dad and your friend. We are not murderers of children to let them go out in gang areas. So why do we let them go online, where it is the same, where there is danger to life and health? 

And how can you restrict if not at an expensive school and if it cannot be banned? 

I think it is mainly necessary to explain all this to children. That the web is like a city, a rubbish dump: if you go to the rubbish dump to play, you will get poisoned and end up in hospital, and it is still unknown whether you will survive. 

Additionally, those children who are older, will easily understand: technology has reached such an incredible level that it is possible to make a fake of any kind. For example, you will be involved in something on the web, you will be walking and talking there, your parents will be there, but it will be a fake. And you take a great risk, you risk disappearing physically. 

It is necessary to warn children and teenagers that only reliable resources can be trusted. We, parents and teachers, should tell children: these sites are reliable, trusted, we know that nothing bad can happen to you there — use them. The only way out is to talk to children. 

You said that information is not equal to knowledge. What are the main differences and how do we move from information to knowledge? 

There is a lot of useful information on the Web, but it is not knowledge. Knowledge is not a dumpsite of information. Knowledge requires a mentor, a teacher who will explain what all this information means. Knowledge is characterised by structured information, well-developed cause-and-effect relationships. This is about the picture of the world: say, people used to think that the Earth was flat and stood on a big turtle, but now they do not think so. Why? It is knowledge. And on the Internet, you will find anything, for example, it may say somewhere that it is all nonsense about the Earth being round, it is still flat now, and yesterday someone saw this turtle on which the Earth stands. So even if you have the whole internet in your pocket in your smartphone with all the information you can get, you need teachers, you need schools and universities. And they cannot all fit in your pocket. 

But nowadays teenagers often refuse to get a degree, especially a university degree, saying that in a smartphone you can find all the information you need for a quick income or a simple job, for example, as a courier. 

Yes, you can work without a degree, but apart from work what you get is other people. And this also should be explained to a teenager. You are responsible for the choices you make. A good education gives chances to do what you like at a higher level, to communicate with very interesting people, for example, with intellectual elites, to go on business trips, to travel, to get new impressions, to develop. Education and structured knowledge form a picture of the world but not stuffing your suitcase as much as possible with all kinds of information from the Internet — why do you need this heavy suitcase? Only to throw it away. 

What do you think about social media — are they shaping a new generation? What is the future of social media and those who are addicted to them? 

Of course, this is a new generation, it is another world altogether, another type of communication. There are positive aspects to this phenomenon. For example, social media are an important thing in the case of a sick or lonely person who does not work, who does not leave home, who has no one to communicate with except their cat, and on social media they can get in touch with people. Or during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown a lot of people were socialising on social media. 

There are a number of very good computer games, educational, developing the speed of thought and reaction. But if young people do not leave the networks and play shooting games, it can become dangerous. They do not have real life and do not understand it. For example, a child killed everyone in the game, then switched off the computer, switched it on again, and they are all running around as if nothing happened. 

Then a binge player neither gains nor loses a sense of the reality and value of life, of the irreparability of a serious injury, of death? 

Well, yes, they do not understand how the world works, which means that they absolutely do not understand the tragic and irrevocable nature of some steps. Children do not yet have the emotional experience to understand what is experienced in a game and what a living person feels. Not so long ago, I read a post about a 12-year-old girl who attacked her classmate with a knife, and then calmly said that killing her turned out to be different experience from how it is in computer games. 

But in the past, children also played violent games, such as "war games", in the street, but for some reason it was not like this. 

It was not. But now it is. Perhaps because modern computer games, computer simulations, are becoming more and more advanced, interactive, with special helmets for this purpose (augmented reality AR. — Editor’s note), and transmit not only video and audio, but also tactile sensations, smells and so on. 

By the way, there is already a generation of adults who have little or no experience of real human interaction, socialisation, for example, flirting or hitting back. There is no longer the kind of experience that children and teenagers used to get playing in the street: if one is too rude or complains and snitches on everyone, they will get a quick one and realise what things are unacceptable. Nothing replaces a friendly smack in the yard. 

Besides, there is anonymity on social media and computer games. And you are not fully represented there, and you cannot know for sure who this person you are communicating with or playing with. You think he is Petia or Ivan and that he is 12 years old like you. But he might be Sidor Petrovich and he might be 72 and the leader of some drug gang. 

Parents should understand all this and explain it to their children. 

What else is especially important for parents to know and do today? 

Is getting a baby more complicated than getting a coffee machine? But if I get a coffee machine, I either read the manual or call someone who has the same machine and ask them to describe how it works. When young people who have grown up with computers have a baby, they often know nothing about children development. For example, what a child should be able to do at what age, when their brains are developing, and so on. But they should know, for example, that if a child is three years old and does not speak yet, they should run to a specialist. And since we have missed a couple of generations in this crazy world, grandparents often do not know anything, too. 

Why do children with a large vocabulary, who did not use filler words before, suddenly start using them when they become teenagers? Is it necessary to correct them or is it better to ignore? 

Words spring up from the environment. The question is how a child is brought up: are they ready to copy everything they see, let us say in the street, or not? Parents should explain to the child that there is food that should not be eaten, there are neighbourhoods that should not be visited, and in general there are many things that should not be done because they are bad. This also applies to the use of parasitic words. People who claim to have a high level of education and a serious social standing should have appropriate speech. Speech is a very important indicator of your level of education and culture. By speech, its style, phonetics, you can determine your background (and this is not only about geography). In our country, this indicator, of course, does not play such a global role, as, for example, in the high classes of Great Britain, but still essential. For example, I myself, when new employees and students appear, react to speech. 

How can we teach teens to use punctuation when messaging? 

You can’t. Such things cannot be solved by moralising and prohibitions. But again: you can explain and work on it seriously, intelligently and systematically. Punctuation marks are also a certain level of culture, one of the signs by which a person will be evaluated by society. If you are a lumpen who does not care at all, you can not only avoid using punctuation marks, but sit down in the middle of the road and start chewing a bun. Maybe that argument would work on a teenager. Of course, it is not genetic and can be fixed. But you do not need to yell in the kitchen every morning: "You’re writing without commas again!". It is better, for example, to offer the teenager an interesting book in which the character they like speaks, writes and dresses in a certain way. 

And why in recent years even some adults have suddenly started to text without punctuation marks and capital letters, what are the reasons: time saving, fashion, new subculture? 

Yes, it saves time and it is trendy. Moreover, linguists study this phenomenon, there are academic papers. But it is only partly a subculture. And partly it is a transition to another type of communication. Because communication through messengers in various small devices is actually oral speech, on the go, it is just fixed in writing. And in oral speech, you do not say, "Here is a comma, here is a dash." 

In a language, there are "speech genres" — a scientific term. If a person comes to the market and says: "Would you be so kind as to show me which cabbage has been pickled or sautéed in apple juice, I will be eternally grateful to you." Such a person is inadequate in the market — they do not realise where they are. We speak differently in different places. There is one style, vocabulary, voice, pronunciation to speak in church — say, a sermon. And there is another style you use in the marketplace, or give a lecture, or the way engineers communicate in their professional environment, or the way we are having a conversation right now. Those are different roles. And markers of who you are. It is your signature. 

Lyudmila Verbitskaya (Soviet and Russian linguist, Academician and President of the Russian Academy of Education in 2013-2018. — Editor’s note), who was my teacher at the University from the first year, used to say with regret that in recent years speech styles and speech genres have been transformed. What used to be high style has been replaced by what used to be considered conventionally "middle style", and middle style has been replaced by what used to be called "low style". Society began to speak the way illiterate people on the street used to speak. The high style disappeared. And the low style became some other, new style. Basically, we can stop using language altogether and just start pointing our fingers: this gesture means, let us say, that I need a bottle of water. It all depends on our self-representation. 

And if we look at the world of messengers as a market, as a special new reality, whose rules of communication are just being formed nowadays? 

Maybe they are. Language is alive, it never stagnates, it changes all the time: written, spoken, pronounced. 

But when I meet Russian speech preserved in emigration by descendants of the White Guard, I literally bask in its beauty. 

Why are you basking in it when you can just say and write "plz" or "thnx" and write everything with a small letter? Well, if someone wants to write like that, be my guest! But it traumatises me. I am a conservative. I want high style. At the same time, a person who has a good command of their native language should know different styles. That is why I know a number of very high-class linguistics professors who are masters of swearing. 

Are you one of them? 

Yes, I am, but maybe not as virtuoso as others. Swear lexis is a certain layer of language, and linguists do study it. It is actually a marvellous invention, because there is a minimal set of components from which you can build gigantic texts. 

Linguists record the facts of language, like a botanist records new or disappearing plants and flowers: here is another flower found, and this one is endangered. The study of language is the gathering of facts of the most complex of human systems. 

So, is messenger language the new flower? 

Yes. 

But we don’t say "plz" in spoken language, so why have so many of us started writing like that? 

The thing that happened was what some linguists had predicted in general. For example, Tatiana Nikolaeva (Soviet and Russian linguist, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. — Editor’s note), a wonderful professor at the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, one of the finest connoisseurs of language, said many years ago that language would speed up. And speed up in every sense. And so it happened. Speaking has become faster: pay attention to the speed of speech of TV presenters. But she was not just talking about the pace of speech, she was talking about fitting as much information as possible into a unit of time. So "plz" — we are going to fit a lot more stuff in here. 

Is it good or bad in that case? 

That is a different question. It is good for someone who is in a hurry and writes an everyday text message. In this situation, why write: "Hello, deeply respected Evlampiia Sidorovna", when you can write a short "hello" and get straight to the point. 

Or even send a picture of a palm instead of the word "hello". This is an even shorter way of communicating: ideogram, emoticon, emoji, sticker. What should we do about this new reality, this non-verbal language? 

We even published a book on polymodal texts that combine verbal information and pictures of all kinds. And pictures are not only in the phone: take, for example, modern book for children, they are half made of pictures, visualised letters. This is a modern trend. And also, a fashion, which I find to be a negative thing. 

Everyone is in a hurry now, as if they are discovering the law of universal gravitation. Where are they rushing? Back to where they came from. And they are doing stupid things, but they are going faster, faster, faster. Stop and try to write at least half a page of text the way Mikhail Lermontov wrote, for example. It is your native language! But many people cannot. It is a very serious task. And I would give such tasks at university. Here is a topic for you: write as if you were Nikolay Karamzin. It is very interesting and useful for this purpose to read letters of outstanding figures of the past — everything is published. How they wrote! 

Of course, you can say: I couldn’t care less, I don’t go to museums, and why should I read books if I can put on headphones, and they will briefly tell me how bad it is to cheat on your husband, because you can get hit by a locomotive (a reference to Leo Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina — Editor’s note). I mean that, if you put yourself in such a box, there are no questions. And if we take into account the context of our conversation, there are different styles of speech, different languages, and I feel strong because I can speak, write, communicate in different languages — depending on the situation, social environment and tasks. God put a giant brain in our head for more than one "plz". And in a serious discussion, "plz" looks the same as if you start talking to a small child with the words: "Gracious Sir." Or speaking Korean to someone who does not know Korean. It is important to realise that there are different languages, and the more languages I know, the better I am. 

Are GPT chat rooms, neural networks, artificial intelligence affecting humanity? Isn’t intelligence, especially in young people, declining due to the simplification of the ways of obtaining information on the Internet, and simplification of survival in general?

Everything has its effect, of course. There is now a serious discussion about allowing to accept student papers with 40% written by GPT rather than the author. Wonderful discussion, except for one thing: do you have a method to determine exactly what that percentage is and prove that it is exceeded in the paper in question? Because otherwise the student will sue you. But so far, the experts who deal with such things answer unequivocally: no, we cannot prove it. I can sense this from a mile away, feel it in my bones, because, say, I know this student and I know that he or she could not have written such a thing. But I cannot prove it formally. 

Also, surely artificial intelligence can be tailored to a particular student’s style of speech and thinking, so that the work of AI resembles the authentic work in most cases?

Of course, they do. That is why this variant of work (together with GPT. — Editor’s note) should be banned altogether. Do you want to be treated by a doctor, whose student papers were written by neural networks, artificial intelligence? 

Of course, no. 

And we are making big steps in that direction. 

But how do you fight AI-assisted works if it is almost impossible to define it other than "in your bones" and not all teachers may have this gut feeling, and more importantly, if you cannot prove it? 

The only thing I came up with, and I even talked about it at some meetings, was an oral defence of student papers. 

Is it like with the Unified State Examination, when some universities fought back to keep oral and specialised exams? 

Yes. The USE has its advantages. But what the USE mainly tests is memory and attention. And the ability to think — to a small extent. The most gifted applicants are rejected by the USE because they think creatively, outside the box. 

Speaking about smartphones and other gadgets: they are used for writing much more often than a ballpoint pen. How can all this affect memory? 

It is bad. Not writing with a pen will change the motor skills — and the corresponding areas in the brain will not develop in the same way. But you cannot influence it anyway: we do not write with a feather pen with different pressure anymore. 

As for memory, that is a separate issue. Natalia Bekhtereva once answered the question of how to preserve memory: throw away notebooks, remember by heart all telephones, all surnames and patronymics, as well as all obligations, what you should do on what day and at what hour. 

It sounds almost unrealistic nowadays, but you can probably learn poems, prose, pieces of music by heart? 

Definitely. Memory needs constant training. 

What is your personal definition of intuition? Is it what is called instinct, a gift of a homo sapiens? Or is it just one of the functions of the brain, a kind of mechanism of self-preservation, that quickly collects data, processes it and gives final conclusion in the form of unconscious identification of the threat? 

Both. You can google and find tons of definitions of intuition, but they all are useless. We all know what intuition is, but it is very hard to explain. It is something that is not done by algorithm, something you cannot schedule. But it is something that you can trace in your own life. In the hindsight (you do not have to look very far back), you can find out that you have a strong intuition. You know from your own experience that when your gut, a strong inner feeling, for unknown reasons says "don’t go there", it is better not to go. And if you do not listen to it and go there, you are bound to get into some trouble, for example, you will get into some scandal that you wouldn’t have gotten into if you hadn’t gone there. Intuition is a very powerful and very subtle phenomenon, which is very difficult to define. It is not structured, there is a different logic there, everything is different there. 

Scientific discoveries are also made on the basis of intuition — not with a logarithmic ruler, but with intuition. It does not mean that you do not know anything. You already know a lot of things, but it is all spinning around you and do not make any sense, and then suddenly, bang — and discovery, intuitive. It is like an epiphany. 

How to develop intuition? 

Listen to yourself more and do not miss the signs.