EP 63: Eliezer Yudkowsky (AI Safety Expert) Explains How AI Could Destroy Humanity
The Logan Bartlett Show
The Purpose of a Fire Alarm
The purpose of a fire alarm is to tell you to get out of the building, but there have been some interesting studies done over the years in cognitive psychology. People who are alone in a room that starts to fill up with smoke will typically go out and report it. But if we did notice a fire, the fire alarm would give us social permission to react. The moral is that the fire alarm serves a function of saying that it's socially permitted to evacuate the building.
Eliezer Yudkowsky is a researcher, writer, and advocate for artificial intelligence safety. He is best known for his writings on rationality, cognitive biases, and the development of superintelligence. Yudkowsky has written extensively on the topic of AI safety and has advocated for the development of AI systems that are aligned with human values and interests. Yudkowsky is the co-founder of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI), a non-profit organization dedicated to researching the development of safe and beneficial artificial intelligence. He is also a co-founder of the Center for Applied Rationality (CFAR), a non-profit organization focused on teaching rational thinking skills. He is also a frequent author at LessWrong.com as well as Rationality: From AI to Zombies.
In this episode, we discuss Eliezer’s concerns with artificial intelligence and his recent conclusion that it will inevitably lead to our demise. He’s a brilliant mind, an interesting person, and genuinely believes all of the stuff he says. So I wanted to have a conversation with him to hear where he is coming from, how he got there, understand AI better, and hopefully help us bridge the divide between the people who think we’re headed off a cliff and the people who think it’s not a big deal.
(0:00) Intro
(1:18) Welcome Eliezer
(6:27) How would you define artificial intelligence?
(15:50) What is the purpose of a firm alarm?
(19:29) Eliezer’s background
(29:28) The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
(33:38) Maybe AI doesn’t end up automatically doing the right thing
(45:42) AI Safety Conference
(51:15) Disaster Monkeys
(1:02:15) Fast takeoff
(1:10:29) Loss function
(1:15:48) Protein folding
(1:24:55) The deadly stuff
(1:46:41) Why is it inevitable?
(1:54:27) Can’t we let tech develop AI and then fix the problems?
(2:02:56) What were the big jumps between GPT3 and GPT4?
(2:07:15) “The trajectory of AI is inevitable”
(2:28:05) Elon Musk and OpenAI
(2:37:41) Sam Altman Interview
(2:50:38) The most optimistic path to us surviving
(3:04:46) Why would anything super intelligent pursue ending humanity?
(3:14:08) What role do VCs play in this?
Show Notes:
https://twitter.com/liron/status/1647443778524037121?s=20
https://futureoflife.org/event/ai-safety-conference-in-puerto-rico/
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/j9Q8bRmwCgXRYAgcJ/miri-announces-new-death-with-dignity-strategy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9Figerh89g
Eliezer Yudkowsky – AI Alignment: Why It's Hard, and Where to Start
Mixed and edited: Justin Hrabovsky
Produced: Rashad Assir
Executive Producer: Josh Machiz
Music: Griff Lawson
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About the Show
Logan Bartlett is a Software Investor at Redpoint Ventures - a Silicon Valley-based VC with $6B AUM and investments in Snowflake, DraftKings, Twilio, and Netflix. In each episode, Logan goes behind the scenes with world-class entrepreneurs and investors. If you're interested in the real inside baseball of tech, entrepreneurship, and start-up investing, tune in every Friday for new episodes.
Executive Producer: Rashad Assir
Producer: Leah Clapper
Mixing and editing: Justin Hrabovsky
Check out Unsupervised Learning, Redpoint's AI Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@UCUl-s_Vp-Kkk_XVyDylNwLA
🎥 Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCugS0jD5IAdoqzjaNYzns7w?sub_confirmation=1
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📸 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/theloganbartlettshow
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🎬 Clips on TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@theloganbartlettshow
About the Show
Logan Bartlett is a Software Investor at Redpoint Ventures - a Silicon Valley-based VC with $6B AUM and investments in Snowflake, DraftKings, Twilio, and Netflix. In each episode of The Logan Bartlett Show, we sit down with the people behind today’s most important startups and extract the tactics, lessons, and frameworks they’ve learned the hard way. Conversations span hiring to GTM, product, growth, fundraising and everything in between - collectively forming the ultimate playbook to make you a better CEO, investor or board member.
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