Concerning sentient AI, we would like to avoid unnecessary suffering in artificial systems. It’s hard for biological systems like humans to turn off suffering without appropriate pharmacology i.e. from aspirin to anesthetics etc. AI may be able to self administer pain killers – a kind of wireheading in reverse. Similarly to wireheading in AI systems…
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…
Suffering is generally bad – Peter Singer (who is a Hedonistic Utilitarian), and most Effective Altruists would agree with this. Though in addressing the need for suffering today Peter acknowledges that, as we are presently constituted, suffering is useful as a warning sign (e.g. against further injury). But what about the future? What if we…
Moral philosophers Peter Singer & David Pearce discuss some of the long term issues with various forms of utilitarianism, the future of predation and utilitronium shockwaves. Topics Covered – long term impacts of various forms of utilitarianism – Consciousness – Artificial Intelligence – Reducing suffering in the long run and in the short term –…
Aubrey de Grey is the chief science officer of the SENS Research Foundation, which is a 501(c)(3) public charity that is transforming the way the world researches and treats age-related disease. The research SENS funds at universities around the world and at SENS own Research Center uses regenerative medicine to repair the damage…
