Navigating Optimism in Writing

Joseph Carlsmith is a senior research analyst at Open Philanthropy and a doctoral student in philosophy at the University of Oxford.

We discuss utopia, artificial intelligence, computational power of the brain, infinite ethics, learning from the fact that you exist, perils of futurism, and blogging.

Watch on YouTube. Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, etc.

Episode website + Transcript here.

Follow Joseph on Twitter. Follow me on Twitter.

Subscribe to find out about future episodes!

Timestamps

(0:00:06) - Introduction

(0:02:53) - How to Define a Better Future?

(0:09:19) - Utopia

(0:25:12) - Robin Hanson’s EMs

(0:27:35) - Human Computational Capacity

(0:34:15) - FLOPS to Emulate Human Cognition?

(0:40:15) - Infinite Ethics

(1:00:51) - SIA vs SSA

(1:17:53) - Futurism & Unreality

(1:23:36) - Blogging & Productivity

(1:28:43) - Book Recommendations

(1:30:04) - Conclusion

Please share if you enjoyed this episode! Helps out a ton!