The Exciting and Scary Sides of AI

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I'm excited by the prospect that these AI systems might before long actually be people, possibly conscious beings with beliefs and desires of their own. But at the same time, it just raises so many obvious issues. Once you've got a system which is more intelligent than us, it'll be better able to achieve its goals than we are. And once that people, we actually have to take them into account in our moral calculations. So it's super exciting and super scary simultaneously.

The two hottest topics in tech right now are the rise of generative AI and, with Apple’s recent push into spatial computing, the mainstreaming of augmented reality. Will silicon-based machines develop sentience? Will human experience extend into virtual worlds? These distinct technologies may eventually blend to spawn a surprising future, as our “real” world becomes digitally enhanced and our machines behave increasingly like humans.

Today, a provocative discussion with some big (human) thinkers: Steven Johnson, visiting scholar at Google Labs and author of ”Extra Life,” “Where Good Ideas Come from,” and “How We Got to Now”; philosopher and cognitive scientist David Chalmers, author of ”The Conscious Mind” and “Reality+”; and Betaworks founder and AI investor John Borthwick.

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• “David Chalmers Thinks We May Be Living in a Simulation (and He’s OK With It)”

• “Steven Johnson & Michael Specter on the Future of Life”