Is artificial intelligence going to lead to the extinction of humanity? What would that even look like? Everyone’s got an opinion: mostly either “that sounds absolutely ridiculous” or “that sounds absolutely terrifying”.

In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart do something slightly different. Stuart plays the role of an AI apocalypse sceptic, and grills Tom on all the arguments about the coming AI apocalypse. Happily, Tom has already written a whole book on the subject, so he knows all the answers.

The Studies Show is sponsored by Works in Progress magazine, the best place to find insightful essays on science, technology, and human progress. There’s a new issue out right now! We’re very grateful for their support.

Show notes

* Tom’s book, The Rationalist’s Guide to the Galaxy

* arXiv preprint on evolving AI

* Katja Grace’s survey of AI researchers

* Timothy B. Lee’s Substack post about why he’s not worried about the existential risk of AI

* Nature editorial arguing that the AI revolution hasn’t yet helped chemistry

* Nature editorial arguing that worrying about AI doomsday is a distraction

Credits

The Studies Show is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada Productions.