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…
Anticipating, Creating, & Leading the Accelerating Future John Smart gave an outline of topics in his new book ‘Introduction to Foresight: Personal, Team, and Organizational Adaptiveness‘. John will also speak at the up and coming conference ‘Stepping into the Future‘ – this talk will be ‘The Goodness of the Universe: Outer Space, Inner Space, and…
The pandemic has launched a debate about the future of work around the world. Those who can work remotely have often found they prefer remote or flexible, hybrid options. The Great Resignation has put upward pressure on wages and benefits in the service sector, encouraging the implementation of automation. Climate change mitigation is encouraging a…
Are there facts about whether something is beautiful, or good art, or are such things purely a matter of opinion? A Future Day talk by Andrés Gómez Emilsson Audio: Synopsis: In the spirit of fostering a collaborative relationship between the memeplexes that currently occupy the minds of the post-political intelligentsia, Andrés shares a conceptual framework…
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:…
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…
Hugo de Garis on AI, the story leading up to where we are now, and the possibilities for AI in the not too distant future. We have seen AI sprint past us in many cognitive domains, and in the coming decades we will likely see AI creep up on human level intelligence in other domains…
Joscha Bach discusses progress made in AI so far, what’s missing in AI, and the conceptual progress needed to achieve the grand goals of AI. Discussion points: 0:07 What is intelligence? Intelligence as the ability to be effective over a wide range of environments 0:37 Intelligence vs smartness – interesting models vs intelligent behavior 1:08…
Joscha Bach on ethical progress, and AI – it’s fascinating to think ‘What’s the ultimate utility function?’ – should we seek the answer in our evolved motivations? Discussion points: 0:07 Future directions in ethical progress 1:13 Pain and suffering – concern for things we cannot regulate or change 1:50 Reward signals – we should only get…
Joscha Bach discusses problems with achieving AI alignment, the current discourse around AI, and inefficiencies of human cognition & communication. Discussion points: 0:08 The AI alignment problem 0:42 Asimov’s Laws: Problems with giving AI (rules) to follow – it’s a form of slavery 1:12 The current discourse around AI 2:52 Ethics – where do they…
