In an era where artificial intelligence systems are increasingly tasked with decisions that carry ethical weight – from medical triage to autonomous weapons – the question of whether machines can authentically engage with morality has never been more pressing. To explore this issue, we turn to philosopher David Enoch, a leading advocate of moral realism…
Norm-sensitive cooperation might beat brute-force optimisation when aligning AI with the complex layers of human value – and possibly cosmic ones too. Nick Bostrom suggests that AI systems designed with humility and a cooperative orientation are more likely to navigate the complex web of human and potentially cosmic norms than those driven by rigid utility…
In his new book Deep Utopia, Nick Bostrom invites us to imagine a world where the big problems are solved—no hunger, no war, just a quiet hum of existential security and near infinite bliss. But then what? In a recent interview, he offers a poetic twist: “It might be completely appropriate to place more weight…
Kristian Rönn discusses his amazing book The Darwinian Trap – Macroeconomics & Game theoretic Imagineering: avoiding the minefields of the tragedy of the common in the hope that we can stave off the onslaught of Darwinian Demons, and ultimately find some nash equilibrium of fairness for all humanity, sentient AI an non-human animals. The book…
In this interview Jeff Sebo discusses the ethical implications of artificial intelligence and why we must take the possibility of AI sentience seriously now. He explores challenges in measuring moral significance, the risks of dismissing AI as mere tools, and strategies to mitigate suffering in artificial systems. Drawing on themes from the paper ‘Taking AI…
In this short interview, Peter Singer, a renowned philosopher and ethicist widely recognized for his thought-provoking ideas about universal ethics, discusses the value of life, moral progress, population ethics (aka population axiology), the far future, the uncertainties inherent in philosophical reasoning, moral realism (objective normative truths) and ‘alternative facts’. Points covered:0:00 Intro 0:08 Moral progress…
Singular Learning Theory (SLT) is a novel mathematical framework that expands and improves upon traditional Statistical Learning theory using techniques from algebraic geometry, bayesian statistics, and statistical physics. It has great promise for the mathematical foundations of modern machine learning. Executive director at Timaeus – an AI safety research org working on Developmental Interpretability (also…
J. Dmitri Gallow discusses the principles of instrumental convergence and divergence in AI. The orthogonality thesis, which states intelligence and desire are independent, and the instrumental convergence thesis, which suggests intelligent beings will have similar instrumental desires, are critical concepts. Gallow’s argument focuses on the instrumental divergence, which emerges from the complexity and unpredictability of AI’s actions based on its desires.
This interview was conducted in 2012 in San Francisco. In the future may will see it is not ethically responsible to play genetic roulette and instead take the decision to have happy, healthy, pro-social offspring. 0:00 Introduction0:36 Alleviating Suffering 7:00 Justified Suffering? 13:12 Buddhism 14:42 The World Transhumanist Association 22:35 Recalibration of Society or Biology?…
The following is an enlightening session with James Hughes, Associate Provost at the University of Massachusetts Boston and Director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET), we delve into the intricate world of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and its profound economic implications. In this interview, Hughes, a renowned expert in the field, sheds…
