The Importance of AI Alignment

In episode 400 astrologers Chris Brennan and Nick Dagan Best talk about the emergence of artificial general intelligence through the lens of astrology, and discuss if and when it may occur. Usually when I reach major milestones every 100 episodes I'll do a retrospective looking back, but this time I wanted to look forward into the future and see if we could predict where some of the trends are headed with artificial intelligence over the next couple of decades. We focus in particular on the question of if researchers will be successful in developing what is called artificial general intelligence, which is like sentient human level intelligence in a machine, and if so when. I've been meaning to do an episode on some of the new trends in AI ever since things started accelerating in December with the release of ChatGPT, and because of that I wanted to document some of the recent developments that have happened since then towards the beginning of this episode, and how they have overlapped with things like Pluto's ingress into Aquarius in March. After that we get into talking about some of the broader philosophical issues that are being discussed surrounding AI in the world today, like AI alignment, and the implications of creating a new sentience species on Earth. Eventually later in the episode we look ahead at some major transits in the future over the next 20 years while Pluto is transiting through Aquarius, and try to anticipate when some of the most important turning points in this technology will take place. This episode builds on a previous episode I did with Kent Bye in December 2021 titled Artificial Intelligence and Astrology. You can find out more about Nick Dagan Best on his website at: https://www.nickdaganbestastrologer.com This episode is available in both audio and video versions below. Watch the Video Version of This Episode Watch the video version of this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEMaiAgxJS8 - Transcript A full transcript of this episode is available: Episode 400 transcript Listen to the Audio Version of This Episode Listen to the audio version of this episode or download it as an MP3: