Future of Life Institute Podcas‪t‬ Future of Life Institute

Joscha Bach, Cognitive Scientist and AI researcher, as well as Anthony Aguirre, UCSC Professor of Physics, join us to explore the world through the lens of computation and the difficulties we face on the way to beneficial futures.

 Topics discussed in this episode include:

-Understanding the universe through digital physics
-How human consciousness operates and is structured
-The path to aligned AGI and bottlenecks to beneficial futures
-Incentive structures and collective coordination

You can find the page for this podcast here: https://futureoflife.org/2021/03/31/joscha-bach-and-anthony-aguirre-on-digital-physics-and-moving-towards-beneficial-futures/

You can find FLI's three new policy focused job postings here: futureoflife.org/job-postings/

Have any feedback about the podcast? You can share your thoughts here: www.surveymonkey.com/r/DRBFZCT

Timestamps: 

0:00 Intro
3:17 What is truth and knowledge?
11:39 What is subjectivity and objectivity?
14:32 What is the universe ultimately?
19:22 Is the universe a cellular automaton? Is the universe ultimately digital or analogue?
24:05 Hilbert's hotel from the point of view of computation
35:18 Seeing the world as a fractal
38:48 Describing human consciousness
51:10 Meaning, purpose, and harvesting negentropy
55:08 The path to aligned AGI
57:37 Bottlenecks to beneficial futures and existential security
1:06:53 A future with one, several, or many AGI systems? How do we maintain appropriate incentive structures?
1:19:39 Non-duality and collective coordination
1:22:53 What difficulties are there for an idealist worldview that involves computation?
1:27:20 Which features of mind and consciousness are necessarily coupled and which aren't?
1:36:40 Joscha's final thoughts on AGI

This podcast is possible because of the support of listeners like you. If you found this conversation to be meaningful or valuable, consider supporting it directly by donating at futureoflife.org/donate. Contributions like yours make these conversations possible.

Roman Yampolskiy, Professor of Computer Science at the University of Louisville, joins us to discuss whether we can control, comprehend, and explain AI systems, and how this constrains the project of AI safety.

 Topics discussed in this episode include:

-Roman’s results on the unexplainability, incomprehensibility, and uncontrollability of AI
-The relationship between AI safety, control, and alignment
-Virtual worlds as a proposal for solving multi-multi alignment
-AI security

You can find the page for this podcast here: https://futureoflife.org/2021/03/19/roman-yampolskiy-on-the-uncontrollability-incomprehensibility-and-unexplainability-of-ai/

You can find FLI's three new policy focused job postings here: https://futureoflife.org/job-postings/

Have any feedback about the podcast? You can share your thoughts here: www.surveymonkey.com/r/DRBFZCT

Timestamps: 

0:00 Intro 
2:35 Roman’s primary research interests 
4:09 How theoretical proofs help AI safety research 
6:23 How impossibility results constrain computer science systems
10:18 The inability to tell if arbitrary code is friendly or unfriendly 
12:06 Impossibility results clarify what we can do 
14:19 Roman’s results on unexplainability and incomprehensibility 
22:34 Focusing on comprehensibility 
26:17 Roman’s results on uncontrollability 
28:33 Alignment as a subset of safety and control 
30:48 The relationship between unexplainability, incomprehensibility, and uncontrollability with each other and with AI alignment 
33:40 What does it mean to solve AI safety? 
34:19 What do the impossibility results really mean? 
37:07 Virtual worlds and AI alignment 
49:55 AI security and malevolent agents 
53:00 Air gapping, boxing, and other security methods 
58:43 Some examples of historical failures of AI systems and what we can learn from them 
1:01:20 Clarifying impossibility results
1:06 55 Examples of systems failing and what these demonstrate about AI 
1:08:20 Are oracles a valid approach to AI safety? 
1:10:30 Roman’s final thoughts

This podcast is possible because of the support of listeners like you. If you found this conversation to be meaningful or valuable, consider supporting it directly by donating at futureoflife.org/donate. Contributions like yours make these conversations possible.

Stuart Russell, Professor of Computer Science at UC Berkeley, and Zachary Kallenborn, WMD and drone swarms expert, join us to discuss the highest risk and most destabilizing aspects of lethal autonomous weapons.

 Topics discussed in this episode include:

-The current state of the deployment and development of lethal autonomous weapons and swarm technologies
-Drone swarms as a potential weapon of mass destruction
-The risks of escalation, unpredictability, and proliferation with regards to autonomous weapons
-The difficulty of attribution, verification, and accountability with autonomous weapons
-Autonomous weapons governance as norm setting for global AI issues

You can find the page for this podcast here: https://futureoflife.org/2021/02/25/stuart-russell-and-zachary-kallenborn-on-drone-swarms-and-the-riskiest-aspects-of-lethal-autonomous-weapons/

You can check out the new lethal autonomous weapons website here: https://autonomousweapons.org/

Have any feedback about the podcast? You can share your thoughts here: www.surveymonkey.com/r/DRBFZCT

Timestamps: 

0:00 Intro
2:23 Emilia Javorsky on lethal autonomous weapons
7:27 What is a lethal autonomous weapon?
11:33 Autonomous weapons that exist today
16:57 The concerns of collateral damage, accidental escalation, scalability, control, and error risk
26:57 The proliferation risk of autonomous weapons
32:30 To what extent are global superpowers pursuing these weapons? What is the state of industry's pursuit of the research and manufacturing of this technology
42:13 A possible proposal for a selective ban on small anti-personnel autonomous weapons
47:20 Lethal autonomous weapons as a potential weapon of mass destruction
53:49 The unpredictability of autonomous weapons, especially when swarms are interacting with other swarms
58:09 The risk of autonomous weapons escalating conflicts
01:10:50 The risk of drone swarms proliferating
01:20:16 The risk of assassination
01:23:25 The difficulty of attribution and accountability
01:26:05 The governance of autonomous weapons being relevant to the global governance of AI
01:30:11 The importance of verification for responsibility, accountability, and regulation
01:35:50 Concerns about the beginning of an arms race and the need for regulation
01:38:46 Wrapping up
01:39:23 Outro

This podcast is possible because of the support of listeners like you. If you found this conversation to be meaningful or valuable, consider supporting it directly by donating at futureoflife.org/donate. Contributions like yours make these conversations possible.

John Prendergast, former adjunct professor of psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies, joins Lucas Perry for a discussion about the experience and effects of ego-identification, how to shift to new levels of identity, the nature of non-dual awareness, and the potential relationship between waking up and collective human problems. This is not an FLI Podcast, but a special release where Lucas shares a direction he feels has an important relationship with AI alignment and existential risk issues.

Topics discussed in this episode include:

-The experience of egocentricity and ego-identification
-Waking up into heart awareness
-The movement towards and qualities of non-dual consciousness
-The ways in which the condition of our minds collectively affect the world
-How waking up may be relevant to the creation of AGI

You can find the page for this podcast here: https://futureoflife.org/2021/02/09/john-prendergast-on-non-dual-awareness-and-wisdom-for-the-21st-century/

Have any feedback about the podcast? You can share your thoughts here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/DRBFZCT

Timestamps: 

0:00 Intro
7:10 The modern human condition
9:29 What egocentricity and ego-identification are
15:38 Moving beyond the experience of self
17:38 The origins and structure of self
20:25 A pointing out instruction for noticing ego-identification and waking up out of it
24:34 A pointing out instruction for abiding in heart-mind or heart awareness
28:53 The qualities of and moving into heart awareness and pure awareness
33:48 An explanation of non-dual awareness
40:50 Exploring the relationship between awareness, belief, and action
46:25 Growing up and improving the egoic structure
48:29 Waking up as recognizing true nature
51:04 Exploring awareness as primitive and primary
53:56 John's dream of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
57:57 The use and value of conceptual thought and the mind
1:00:57 The epistemics of heart-mind and the conceptual mind as we shift levels of identity
1:17:46 A pointing out instruction for inquiring into core beliefs
1:27:28 The universal heart, qualities of awakening, and the ethical implications of such shifts
1:31:38 Wisdom, waking up, and growing up for the transgenerational issues of the 21st century
1:38:44 Waking up and its applicability to the creation of AGI
1:43:25 Where to find, follow, and reach out to John
1:45:56 Outro

This podcast is possible because of the support of listeners like you. If you found this conversation to be meaningful or valuable, consider supporting it directly by donating at futureoflife.org/donate. Contributions like yours make these conversations possible.

Beatrice Fihn, executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, joins us to discuss the current risks of nuclear war, policies that can reduce the risks of nuclear conflict, and how to move towards a nuclear weapons free world.

Topics discussed in this episode include:

-The current nuclear weapons geopolitical situation
-The risks and mechanics of accidental and intentional nuclear war
-Policy proposals for reducing the risks of nuclear war
-Deterrence theory
-The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
-Working towards the total elimination of nuclear weapons

You can find the page for this podcast here: https://futureoflife.org/2021/01/21/beatrice-fihn-on-the-total-elimination-of-nuclear-weapons/

Timestamps: 

0:00 Intro
4:28 Overview of the current nuclear weapons situation
6:47 The 9 nuclear weapons states, and accidental and intentional nuclear war
9:27 Accidental nuclear war and human systems
12:08 The risks of nuclear war in 2021 and nuclear stability
17:49 Toxic personalities and the human component of nuclear weapons
23:23 Policy proposals for reducing the risk of nuclear war
23:55 New START Treaty
25:42 What does it mean to maintain credible deterrence
26:45 ICAN and working on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
28:00 Deterrence theoretic arguments for nuclear weapons
32:36 The reduction of nuclear weapons, no first use, removing ground based missile systems, removing hair-trigger alert, removing presidential authority to use nuclear weapons
39:13 Arguments for and against nuclear risk reduction policy proposals
46:02 Moving all of the United State's nuclear weapons to bombers and nuclear submarines
48:27 Working towards and the theory of the total elimination of nuclear weapons
1:11:40 The value of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
1:14:26 Elevating activism around nuclear weapons and messaging more skillfully
1:15:40 What the public needs to understand about nuclear weapons
1:16:35 World leaders' views of the treaty
1:17:15 How to get involved

This podcast is possible because of the support of listeners like you. If you found this conversation to be meaningful or valuable, consider supporting it directly by donating at futureoflife.org/donate. Contributions like yours make these conversations possible.

Max Tegmark and members of the FLI core team come together to discuss favorite projects from 2020, what we've learned from the past year, and what we think is needed for existential risk reduction in 2021.

Topics discussed in this episode include:

-FLI's perspectives on 2020 and hopes for 2021
-What our favorite projects from 2020 were
-The biggest lessons we've learned from 2020
-What we see as crucial and needed in 2021 to ensure and make -improvements towards existential safety

You can find the page for this podcast here: https://futureoflife.org/2021/01/08/max-tegmark-and-the-fli-team-on-2020-and-existential-risk-reduction-in-the-new-year/

Timestamps: 

0:00 Intro
00:52 First question: What was your favorite project from 2020?
1:03 Max Tegmark on the Future of Life Award
4:15 Anthony Aguirre on AI Loyalty
9:18 David Nicholson on the Future of Life Award
12:23 Emilia Javorksy on being a co-champion for the UN Secretary-General's effort on digital cooperation
14:03 Jared Brown on developing comments on the European Union's White Paper on AI through community collaboration
16:40 Tucker Davey on editing the biography of Victor Zhdanov
19:49 Lucas Perry on the podcast and Pindex video
23:17 Second question: What lessons do you take away from 2020?
23:26 Max Tegmark on human fragility and vulnerability
25:14 Max Tegmark on learning from history
26:47 Max Tegmark on the growing threats of AI
29:45 Anthony Aguirre on the inability of present-day institutions to deal with large unexpected problems
33:00 David Nicholson on the need for self-reflection on the use and development of technology
38:05 Emilia Javorsky on the global community coming to awareness about tail risks
39:48 Jared Brown on our vulnerability to low probability, high impact events and the importance of adaptability and policy engagement
41:43 Tucker Davey on taking existential risks more seriously and ethics-washing
43:57 Lucas Perry on the fragility of human systems
45:40 Third question: What is needed in 2021 to make progress on existential risk mitigation
45:50 Max Tegmark on holding Big Tech accountable, repairing geopolitics, and fighting the myth of the technological zero-sum game
49:58 Anthony Aguirre on the importance of spreading understanding of expected value reasoning and fixing the information crisis
53:41 David Nicholson on the need to reflect on our values and relationship with technology
54:35 Emilia Javorksy on the importance of returning to multilateralism and global dialogue
56:00 Jared Brown on the need for robust government engagement
57:30 Lucas Perry on the need for creating institutions for existential risk mitigation and global cooperation
1:00:10 Outro

This podcast is possible because of the support of listeners like you. If you found this conversation to be meaningful or valuable, consider supporting it directly by donating at futureoflife.org/donate. Contributions like yours make these conversations possible.