Anders Sandberg joins me to discuss superintelligence and its profound implications for human psychology, markets, and governance. We talk about physical bottlenecks, tensions between the technosphere and the biosphere, and the long-term cultural and physical forces shaping civilization. We conclude with Sandberg explaining the difficulties of designing reliable AI systems amidst rapid change and coordination risks.
Learn more about Anders's work here: https://mimircenter.org/anders-sandberg
Timestamps:
00:00:00 Preview and intro
00:04:20 2030 superintelligence scenario
00:11:55 Status, post-scarcity, and reshaping human psychology
00:16:00 Physical limits: energy, datacenter, and waste-heat bottlenecks
00:23:48 Technosphere vs biosphere
00:28:42 Culture and physics as long-run drivers of civilization
00:40:38 How superintelligence could upend markets and governments
00:50:01 State inertia: why governments lag behind companies
00:59:06 Value lock-in, censorship, and model alignment
01:08:32 Emergent AI ecosystems and coordination-failure risks
01:19:34 Predictability vs reliability: designing safe systems
01:30:32 Crossing the reliability threshold
01:38:25 Personal reflections on accelerating change
