Balancing Reliability and Flexibility in AI

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