205 episodes
Future of Life Institute Podcast Future of Life Institute
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- Technology
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4.6 • 12 Ratings
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The Future of Life Institute (FLI) is a nonprofit working to reduce global catastrophic and existential risk from powerful technologies. In particular, FLI focuses on risks from artificial intelligence (AI), biotechnology, nuclear weapons and climate change.
The Institute's work is made up of three main strands: grantmaking for risk reduction, educational outreach, and advocacy within the United Nations, US government and European Union institutions.
FLI has become one of the world's leading voices on the governance of AI having created one of the earliest and most influential sets of governance principles: the Asilomar AI Principles.
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Dan Faggella on the Race to AGI
Dan Faggella joins the podcast to discuss whether humanity should eventually create AGI, how AI will change power dynamics between institutions, what drives AI progress, and which industries are implementing AI successfully. Find out more about Dan at https://danfaggella.com
Timestamps:
00:00 Value differences in AI
12:07 Should we eventually create AGI?
28:22 What is a worthy successor?
43:19 AI changing power dynamics
59:00 Open source AI
01:05:07 What drives AI progress?
01:16:36 What limits AI progress?
01:26:31 Which industries are using AI? -
Liron Shapira on Superintelligence Goals
Liron Shapira joins the podcast to discuss superintelligence goals, what makes AI different from other technologies, risks from centralizing power, and whether AI can defend us from AI.
Timestamps:
00:00 Intelligence as optimization-power
05:18 Will LLMs imitate human values?
07:15 Why would AI develop dangerous goals?
09:55 Goal-completeness
12:53 Alignment to which values?
22:12 Is AI just another technology?
31:20 What is FOOM?
38:59 Risks from centralized power
49:18 Can AI defend us against AI?
56:28 An Apollo program for AI safety
01:04:49 Do we only have one chance?
01:07:34 Are we living in a crucial time?
01:16:52 Would superintelligence be fragile?
01:21:42 Would human-inspired AI be safe? -
Annie Jacobsen on Nuclear War - a Second by Second Timeline
Annie Jacobsen joins the podcast to lay out a second by second timeline for how nuclear war could happen. We also discuss time pressure, submarines, interceptor missiles, cyberattacks, and concentration of power. You can find more on Annie's work at https://anniejacobsen.com
Timestamps:
00:00 A scenario of nuclear war
06:56 Who would launch an attack?
13:50 Detecting nuclear attacks
19:37 The first critical seconds
29:42 Decisions under time pressure
34:27 Lessons from insiders
44:18 Submarines
51:06 How did we end up like this?
59:40 Interceptor missiles
1:11:25 Nuclear weapons and cyberattacks
1:17:35 Concentration of power -
Katja Grace on the Largest Survey of AI Researchers
Katja Grace joins the podcast to discuss the largest survey of AI researchers conducted to date, AI researchers' beliefs about different AI risks, capabilities required for continued AI-related transformation, the idea of discontinuous progress, the impacts of AI from either side of the human-level intelligence threshold, intelligence and power, and her thoughts on how we can mitigate AI risk. Find more on Katja's work at https://aiimpacts.org/.
Timestamps:
0:20 AI Impacts surveys
18:11 What AI will look like in 20 years
22:43 Experts’ extinction risk predictions
29:35 Opinions on slowing down AI development
31:25 AI “arms races”
34:00 AI risk areas with the most agreement
40:41 Do “high hopes and dire concerns” go hand-in-hand?
42:00 Intelligence explosions
45:37 Discontinuous progress
49:43 Impacts of AI crossing the human-level intelligence threshold
59:39 What does AI learn from human culture?
1:02:59 AI scaling
1:05:04 What should we do? -
Holly Elmore on Pausing AI, Hardware Overhang, Safety Research, and Protesting
Holly Elmore joins the podcast to discuss pausing frontier AI, hardware overhang, safety research during a pause, the social dynamics of AI risk, and what prevents AGI corporations from collaborating. You can read more about Holly's work at https://pauseai.info
Timestamps:
00:00 Pausing AI
10:23 Risks during an AI pause
19:41 Hardware overhang
29:04 Technological progress
37:00 Safety research during a pause
54:42 Social dynamics of AI risk
1:10:00 What prevents cooperation?
1:18:21 What about China?
1:28:24 Protesting AGI corporations -
Sneha Revanur on the Social Effects of AI
Sneha Revanur joins the podcast to discuss the social effects of AI, the illusory divide between AI ethics and AI safety, the importance of humans in the loop, the different effects of AI on younger and older people, and the importance of AIs identifying as AIs. You can read more about Sneha's work at https://encodejustice.org
Timestamps:
00:00 Encode Justice
06:11 AI ethics and AI safety
15:49 Humans in the loop
23:59 AI in social media
30:42 Deteriorating social skills?
36:00 AIs identifying as AIs
43:36 AI influence in elections
50:32 AIs interacting with human systems
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Excellend cutting edge science discussions
Max Tegmark is one of the brightest minds alive today and this podcast reflects some of his ideas whille presenting interviews with the inside scoop on the exponentially advancing frontier of human knowledge in a wide variety of disciiplines.
Concerns Over Platforming
I have long listened to the FLI podcast with great admiration for their critical, timely discussions. Recently, however, since the change of hosts, the podcast has been platforming fear mongering LessWrong nerds that stack conjecture upon conjecture and jargon upon jargon to make for untasteful, overly speculative arguments ((fe fi fo) fum? fume?). This is most notable in the past two guests, as of 05/07/24. Previously, the discussions with guests had used anecdotal, evidence based arguments that could led their argument to future concerns. Now, especially in the AI discourse, I hear statements like “I’ve been doing this for so many years and so the way things will go is this…”
Please return to the discussions that use evidence (science based, art historical based, etc) to lead the listener to thinking about future of life. Currently the discussions feel so far removed and ungrounded, it’s becoming repulsive; hence, my overly negative attitude.
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