Why 'Mostly Great' Futures Are Hard

William MacAskill is a senior research fellow at Forethought. He joins the podcast to discuss his Better Futures essay series. We explore moral error risks, AI character design, space governance, and persistent path dependence. The conversation also covers risk-averse AI systems, moral trade between value systems, and improving model specifications for ethical reasoning.

LINKS:
- Better Futures Research Series: https://www.forethought.org/research/better-futures
- William MacAskill Forethought Profile: https://www.forethought.org/people/william-macaskill

CHAPTERS:

(00:00) Episode Preview

(01:03) Improving The Future's Quality

(09:58) Moral Errors and AI Rights

(18:24) AI's Impact on Thinking

(27:17) Utopias and Population Ethics

(36:41) The Danger of Moral Lock-in

(44:38) Deals with Misaligned AI

(57:25) AI and Moral Trade

(01:08:21) Improving AI Ethical Reasoning

(01:16:05) The Risk of Path Dependence

(01:27:41) Avoiding Future Lock-in

(01:36:22) The Urgency of Space Governance

(01:46:19) A Future Research Agenda

(01:57:36) Is Intelligence a Good Bet?

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