Below is a video recording of Peter Singer’s talk ‘Animal Liberation Now’ at Melbourne uni in Aug 2023. Few books maintain their relevance – and have remained continuously in print – nearly 50 years after they were first published.Animal Liberation, one of TIME’s “All-TIME 100 Best Non-Fiction Books” is one such book. Since its original…
The concept of digital twins combined with engineering simulation is an exciting framework for professionals working to improve medical devices in biomedicine. A digital twin acts as a virtual representation or digital replica of a physical object, system, processes which can include parts of the human body. Digital twins can be applied to medical devices…
Dr Simon Goldstein is an associate professor at the Dianoia Institute of Philosophy at ACU. In 2023, he is a research fellow at the Center for AI Safety. Simon’s research focuses on AI safety, epistemology, and philosophy of language. Before ACU, Simon was an assistant professor at Lingnan University in Hong Kong. Simon received my…
The time will come when diligent research over long periods will bring to light things which now lie hidden. A single lifetime, even though entirely devoted to the sky, would not be enough for the investigation of so vast a subject… And so this knowledge will be unfolded only through long successive ages. There will come a time when our descendants will be amazed that we did not know things that are so plain to them… Many discoveries are reserved for ages still to come, when memory of us will have been effaced.
Postmodernism and relativism buckle under their own contradiction: they passionately assert the objective truth that there exists no objective truth. This very paradox embodies a self-negating precept, a construct that dismantles itself from within. They champion the idea of relative truths, yet in this declaration, they inadvertently sculpt an overarching meta-narrative, contradicting the foundational principle…
Our scientific observations are not pristine windows to reality; they are tinted by the theoretical frameworks and conceptual schemes that scaffold our interpretations, often smuggling in with them implicit assumptions of the very thesis they’re meant to support. We don’t simply absorb the world as it is; rather, we interpret it through the filter of…
With AI we have made a ‘Faustian bargain’ – are the risks reason enough to halt technological progress? Professor A. C. Grayling discusses the implications of machine learning, artificial intelligence, and robotics on society, and shares his views on how they will reshape the future. The thing that’s going to change everything is machine learning,…
Delighted to have Stuart Russell on video discussing the importance of AI Alignment – achieving friendly Strong AI that is provably beneficial. Points of discussion:A clash of intuitions about the beneficiality of Strong Artificial Intelligence The Value Alignment problem Basic AI Drives: Any objective generates sub-goals Aggregated Volition: How does an AI optimise for many…
Here, Adam Ford interviews OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Adam Ford: What is the anatomical basis for raw feels? ChatGPT: I’m not exactly sure what you mean by “raw feels.” Could you please provide some more context or clarify your question? Adam Ford: By “raw feels” I mean pleasure and suffering. ChatGPT: Pleasure and suffering are subjective experiences,…
David Pearce in interview on the The Anatomy of Happiness. While researching epilepsy, neuroscientist Itzhak Fried stumbled on a ‘mirth’ center in the brain – given this, what ought we be doing to combat extreme suffering and promote wellbeing? 0:00 Mastery of reward circuitry 0:25 Itzhak Fried’s experiments on stimulating ‘the Humor Centre’ of the…
