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Iason Gabriel on Foundational Philosophical Questions in AI Alignment

Future of Life Institute · Iason Gabriel on Foundational Philosophical Questions in AI Alignment Find the podcast on:  In the contemporary practice of many scientific disciplines, questions of values, norms, and political thought rarely explicitly enter the picture. In the realm of AI alignment, however, the normative and technical come together in an important and […]

Evan Hubinger on Inner Alignment, Outer Alignment, and Proposals for Building Safe Advanced AI

Future of Life Institute · Evan Hubinger on Inner Alignment, Outer Alignment, and Proposals for Building Safe Advanced AI Find the podcast on: It’s well-established in the AI alignment literature what happens when an AI system learns or is given an objective that doesn’t fully capture what we want.  Human preferences and values are inevitably […]

Sam Barker and David Pearce on Art, Paradise Engineering, and Existential Hope (With Guest Mix)

Future of Life Institute · Sam Barker and David Pearce on Art, Paradise Engineering, and Existential Hope (With Guest Mix) Find the podcast on: Sam Barker, a Berlin-based music producer, and David Pearce, philosopher and author of The Hedonistic Imperative, join us on a special episode of the FLI Podcast to spread some existential hope. […]

Steven Pinker and Stuart Russell on the Foundations, Benefits, and Possible Existential Threat of AI

 Future of Life Institute · Steven Pinker and Stuart Russell on the Foundations, Benefits, and Possible Existential Threat of AI Find the podcast on: Over the past several centuries, the human condition has been profoundly changed by the agricultural and industrial revolutions. With the creation and continued development of AI, we stand in the […]

Sam Harris on Global Priorities, Existential Risk, and What Matters Most

Future of Life Institute · FLI Podcast: On Global Priorities, Existential Risk, and What Matters Most with Sam Harris Find the podcast on: Human civilization increasingly has the potential both to improve the lives of everyone and to completely destroy everything. The proliferation of emerging technologies calls our attention to this never-before-seen power — and […]

FLI Podcast: On the Future of Computation, Synthetic Biology, and Life with George Church

Find the podcast on: Progress in synthetic biology and genetic engineering promise to bring advancements in human health sciences by curing disease, augmenting human capabilities, and even reversing aging. At the same time, such technology could be used to unleash novel diseases and biological agents which could pose global catastrophic and existential risks to life […]

AI Alignment Podcast: An Overview of Technical AI Alignment in 2018 and 2019 with Buck Shlegeris and Rohin Shah

Find the podcast on: Just a year ago we released a two part episode titled An Overview of Technical AI Alignment with Rohin Shah. That conversation provided details on the views of central AI alignment research organizations and many of the ongoing research efforts for designing safe and aligned systems. Much has happened in the […]

FLI Podcast: Lessons from COVID-19 with Emilia Javorsky and Anthony Aguirre

Find the podcast on: The global spread of COVID-19 has put tremendous stress on humanity’s social, political, and economic systems. The breakdowns triggered by this sudden stress indicate areas where national and global systems are fragile, and where preventative and preparedness measures may be insufficient. The COVID-19 pandemic thus serves as an opportunity for reflecting […]

FLI Podcast: The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity with Toby Ord

Find the podcast on: Toby Ord’s “The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity” has emerged as a new cornerstone text in the field of existential risk. The book presents the foundations and recent developments of this budding field from an accessible vantage point, providing an overview suitable for newcomers. For those already familiar […]

AI Alignment Podcast: On Lethal Autonomous Weapons with Paul Scharre

Find the podcast on: Lethal autonomous weapons represent the novel miniaturization and integration of modern AI and robotics technologies for military use. This emerging technology thus represents a potentially critical inflection point in the development of AI governance. Whether we allow AI to make the decision to take human life and where we draw lines […]

FLI Podcast: Distributing the Benefits of AI via the Windfall Clause with Cullen O’Keefe

Find the podcast on: As with the agricultural and industrial revolutions before it, the intelligence revolution currently underway will unlock new degrees and kinds of abundance. Powerful forms of AI will likely generate never-before-seen levels of wealth, raising critical questions about its beneficiaries. Will this newfound wealth be used to provide for the common good, […]

AI Alignment Podcast: On the Long-term Importance of Current AI Policy with Nicolas Moës and Jared Brown

Find the podcast on: From Max Tegmark’s Life 3.0 to Stuart Russell’s Human Compatible and Nick Bostrom’s Superintelligence, much has been written and said about the long-term risks of powerful AI systems. When considering concrete actions one can take to help mitigate these risks, governance and policy related solutions become an attractive area of consideration. But […]

AI Alignment Podcast: Identity and the AI Revolution with David Pearce and Andrés Gómez Emilsson

 Find the podcast on: In the 1984 book Reasons and Persons, philosopher Derek Parfit asks the reader to consider the following scenario: You step into a teleportation machine that scans your complete atomic structure, annihilates you, and then relays that atomic information to Mars at the speed of light. There, a similar machine recreates […]

FLI Podcast: On Consciousness, Morality, Effective Altruism & Myth with Yuval Noah Harari & Max Tegmark

Find the podcast on: Neither Yuval Noah Harari nor Max Tegmark need much in the way of introduction. Both are avant-garde thinkers at the forefront of 21st century discourse around science, technology, society and humanity’s future. This conversation represents a rare opportunity for two intellectual leaders to apply their combined expertise — in physics, artificial […]