The Joe Walker Podcast

David Deutsch & Steven Pinker (First Ever Public Dialogue) — AGI, P(Doom), & The Enemies of Progress

138 snips
Dec 19, 2023
Physicist David Deutsch and psychologist Steven Pinker engage in their first public dialogue, discussing AGI, P(Doom), and enemies of progress. They explore topics like the misconceptions of AGI, programming goals in AI systems, intuition on human disablement, assigning probabilities to subjective feelings, prediction markets, cognitive hygiene, stock market information, children's cognitive development, secrecy in research, and the slowdown in scientific progress.
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INSIGHT

Rational Progress

  • David Deutsch provides a rational basis for expecting progress, not based on mere optimism.
  • Progress is the reasonable expectation because problems are solvable with the right knowledge, unless violating natural laws.
INSIGHT

AGI: An Incoherent Concept?

  • Steven Pinker argues against Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) as a coherent concept.
  • He views intelligence as an algorithm designed for specific problems and environments, not a magical substance.
INSIGHT

Computational Universality Implies AGI

  • David Deutsch believes AGI is possible due to computational universality.
  • Universal Turing machines can theoretically perform any computation, implying potential AGI functionality.
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