In this insightful discussion, guests include Jay Shapiro, a filmmaker behind an engaging audio documentary series, Eliezer Yudkowsky, a computer scientist renowned for his AI safety work, physicist Max Tegmark, and computer science professor Stuart Russell. They delve into the complexities of AI, revealing the dangers of misaligned objectives and the critical issues of value alignment and control. The conversation touches on the transformative potential of AI juxtaposed with ethical dilemmas, consciousness, and geopolitical concerns surrounding AI weaponization.
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insights INSIGHT
Defining Intelligence
Intelligence is the ability to achieve goals flexibly, not just by rote.
Humans are more general than other species, adaptable to various environments like the moon.
insights INSIGHT
General vs. Narrow AI
DeepMind's AlphaZero achieved generality by learning Go and chess with the same architecture.
This surpasses specialized AIs, highlighting a shift towards more general intelligence.
insights INSIGHT
Human-Level AI: A Mirage?
Human-level AI is a mirage; narrow AIs already exhibit superhuman abilities in their domains.
Any general AI will likely surpass humans in most areas, potentially impacting our relevance.
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Published in 1949, '1984' is a cautionary tale by George Orwell that explores the dangers of totalitarianism. The novel is set in a dystopian future where the world is divided into three super-states, with the protagonist Winston Smith living in Oceania, ruled by the mysterious and omnipotent leader Big Brother. Winston works at the Ministry of Truth, where he rewrites historical records to conform to the Party's ever-changing narrative. He begins an illicit love affair with Julia and starts to rebel against the Party, but they are eventually caught and subjected to brutal torture and indoctrination. The novel highlights themes of government surveillance, manipulation of language and history, and the suppression of individual freedom and independent thought.
Life 3.0
Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
Max Tegmark
In 'Life 3.0,' Max Tegmark discusses the evolution of life in three stages: Life 1.0 (biological), Life 2.0 (cultural), and the theoretical Life 3.0 (technological), where life designs both its hardware and software. The book delves into the current state of AI research, potential future scenarios, and the societal implications of advanced technologies. Tegmark also explores concepts such as intelligence, memory, computation, learning, and consciousness, and discusses the risks and benefits associated with the development of artificial general intelligence. The book advocates for a thoughtful and collaborative approach to ensure that AI benefits humanity and emphasizes the importance of AI safety research[2][5][6].
Superintelligence
Paths, Dangers, Strategies
Nick Bostrom
In this book, Nick Bostrom delves into the implications of creating superintelligence, which could surpass human intelligence in all domains. He discusses the potential dangers, such as the loss of human control over such powerful entities, and presents various strategies to ensure that superintelligences align with human values. The book examines the 'AI control problem' and the need to endow future machine intelligence with positive values to prevent existential risks[3][5][4].
Filmmaker Jay Shapiro has produced a new series of audio documentaries, exploring the major topics that Sam has focused on over the course of his career.
Each episode weaves together original analysis, critical perspective, and novel thought experiments with some of the most compelling exchanges from the Making Sense archive. Whether you are new to a particular topic, or think you have your mind made up about it, we think you’ll find this series fascinating.
In this episode, we explore the landscape of Artificial Intelligence. We’ll listen in on Sam’s conversation with decision theorist and artificial-intelligence researcher Eliezer Yudkowsky, as we consider the potential dangers of AI – including the control problem and the value-alignment problem – as well as the concepts of Artificial General Intelligence, Narrow Artificial Intelligence, and Artificial Super Intelligence.
We’ll then be introduced to philosopher Nick Bostrom’s “Genies, Sovereigns, Oracles, and Tools,” as physicist Max Tegmark outlines just how careful we need to be as we travel down the AI path. Computer scientist Stuart Russell will then dig deeper into the value-alignment problem and explain its importance. We’ll hear from former Google CEO Eric Schmidt about the geopolitical realities of AI terrorism and weaponization. We’ll then touch the topic of consciousness as Sam and psychologist Paul Bloom turn the conversation to the ethical and psychological complexities of living alongside humanlike AI. Psychologist Alison Gopnik then reframes the general concept of intelligence to help us wonder if the kinds of systems we’re building using “Deep Learning” are really marching us towards our super-intelligent overlords. Finally, physicist David Deutsch will argue that many value-alignment fears about AI are based on a fundamental misunderstanding about how knowledge actually grows in this universe.
Making Sense with Sam Harris 
