The Existential Threat of AI?

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The idea that the AI is superior to human. Well, in what dimensions? All dimensions. That's an engineering possibility. You cannot maximize all dimensions. If you could have one that can run fast, it’s like we want to make the ultimate machine,. What would a machine better than human? When it could jump higher than us? It probably can't be more nimble. It can't hide easily. Whatever it is. There's just conceptually there's something wrong about this metric of intelligence as a ladder going up. It's just not there.

On his 68th birthday, Kevin Kelly began to write down for his young adult children some things he had learned about life that he wished he had known earlier. To his surprise, Kelly had more to say than he thought, and kept adding to the advice over the years, compiling a life’s wisdom into the pages of his book: Excellent Advice for Living.

Shermer and Kelly discuss: protopian progress • ChatGPT • artificial intelligence; an existential threat? • evolution • cultural progress • self-driving cars • innovation • social media • putting an end to war • compound interest and the long term effect of small changes • why you don’t want to be a billionaire • beliefs and reason • setting unreasonable goals • persistence as key to success • probabilities and statistics, not algebra and calculus • investing: buy and hold • how to fully become yourself.

Kevin Kelly helped launch and edit Wired magazine. He has written for the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, among many other publications. His previous books include What Technology Wants, and The Inevitable, a New York Times bestseller. He is known for his technological optimism. Currently he is a Senior Maverick at Wired and lives in Pacifica, California.