Robin Hanson – UFOs what the hell?
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Robin Hanson – UFOs what the hell?

Robin Hanson gives a talk (starting at 5:31) and addresses questions afterwards on building a plausible story (although perhaps unlikely) of UFA/UFO aliens. Yes, the universe looks completely dead; we see no signs of life outside Earth, even though over millions of years advanced aliens could have made some big visible changes. Some possible explanations:…

Artificial Intelligence – Will it be Smarter than You in Your Lifetime?

Artificial Intelligence – Will it be Smarter than You in Your Lifetime?

Adam Ford argues for the position that Artificial Intelligence Will Be Smarter Than Humans in the lifetime of a young adult (sometime before the end of this century). This was one side of a debate put on my Melbourne University for a philosophy course. Adam discusses reasons why AI becoming smarter than human level intelligence…

The Biohappiness Revolution – David Pearce

The Biohappiness Revolution – David Pearce

Philosopher David Pearce discusses the Biohappiness Revolution, and his forthcoming book. What is health? According to WHO: “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” Further on the rights to health: “The enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of…

Abolitionist Bioethics – David Pearce
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Abolitionist Bioethics – David Pearce

A talk at EAGx Melbourne by David Pearce about suffering and how to get rid of it. David predicts we will abolish suffering throughout the living world. Our descendants will be animated by gradients of genetically preprogrammed well-being that are orders of magnitude richer than today’s peak experiences. David Pearce: First, I’m going to outline…

Anders Sandberg – Aliens, Bayesians and Blurry Footage of UFOs

Anders Sandberg – Aliens, Bayesians and Blurry Footage of UFOs

Are we alone in our sector of the cosmos? Do sightings of unidentified aerial phenomena herald an alien invasion?The declassification of US military footage has rekindled a fiery feud – but before committing to a position in this debate, how can we assess the likelihood (given the existing evidence), that we are being visited by…

David Brin on Marching for Science and the Future
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David Brin on Marching for Science and the Future

March Fourth – on March 4th for Science and the Future! Interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwW3nIPQYwc A discussion on science advocacy & the future! David discussed how to think about strategic foresight (because it was kind of Future Day being March fourth) and science advocacy (especially in relation to the global science march). We also covered the kinds…

Can we build AI without losing control over it? – Sam Harris
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Can we build AI without losing control over it? – Sam Harris

San Harris (author of The Moral Landscape and host of the Waking Up podcast) discusses the need for AI Safety – while fun to think about, we are unable to “martial an appropriate emotional response” to improvements in AI and automation and the prospect of dangerous AI – it’s a failure of intuition to respond…

March for Science! Interview with Michael Shermer
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March for Science! Interview with Michael Shermer

Adam Ford: G’day everybody – we’ve got Michael Shermer here today and we’re going to discuss science advocacy as well as the up and coming ‘March for Science’ which is happening on the 22nd of April. And I’m helping out with the Melbourne March for Science here in Australia. Michael is in California. Michael is…