Pursue Passion Projects for Depth and Insight

Joseph Carlsmith is a senior research analyst at Open Philanthropy and a doctoral student in philosophy at the University of Oxford.

We discuss utopia, artificial intelligence, computational power of the brain, infinite ethics, learning from the fact that you exist, perils of futurism, and blogging.

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Episode website + Transcript here.

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Timestamps

(0:00:06) - Introduction

(0:02:53) - How to Define a Better Future?

(0:09:19) - Utopia

(0:25:12) - Robin Hanson’s EMs

(0:27:35) - Human Computational Capacity

(0:34:15) - FLOPS to Emulate Human Cognition?

(0:40:15) - Infinite Ethics

(1:00:51) - SIA vs SSA

(1:17:53) - Futurism & Unreality

(1:23:36) - Blogging & Productivity

(1:28:43) - Book Recommendations

(1:30:04) - Conclusion

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