Robin Hanson, economist, former AI researcher, and prolific blogger, is the author of The Age of EM: Work, Love, and Life When Robots Rule the Earth, and The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life. In this podcast with Max More, Robin tells us about:
Why he made cryonics arrangements
How prediction markets have developed since he came up with “ideas futures” in the 1990s
What we can know about the future where biostasis patients are revived
To what extent we should worry about AI displacing or harming humans
Why we should be concerned about population decline
Robin notes that he used to talk a lot with Eliezer Yudkowsky years ago. I noticed that Robin does not directly address Eliezer's arguments. He does more of a strawman attack.
‘The Godfather of A.I.’ Leaves Google and Warns of Danger Ahead. For half a century, Geoffrey Hinton nurtured the technology at the heart of chatbots like ChatGPT. Now he worries it will cause serious harm. https://www.nytimes....its-hinton.html
Exclusive: U.S. Must Move ‘Decisively’ to Avert ‘Extinction-Level’ Threat From AI, Government-Commissioned Report Says (Mar 2024) https://time.com/689...y-risks-report/
A lot of this risk stuff is really quite silly. I see people going on and on about AI, climate change, or other such bogosty. The reality is that the real risks are purely institutional. Intrusive government regulation. The Iron Law of Bureaucracy. Institutional dysfunction. Incompetent people being in charge.These are the real risks to whatever future you want to create. Ignore the hype. Focus on the real risks.
I am always been fairly sympathetic to both sides of the AI argument. I used to be more of a techno-optimist, now less so. Why?
Because as AI and robotics is being developed, it is being controlled by governments and big corporations. Most people like the idea of self-driving cars, personal robots, their very own holodeck VR entertainment system, etc... but that is not how it is currently playing out. Car companies are not making fully autonomous cars that you will control, or robots, or whatever. They are renting you the "services". You don't own the asset (robots, cars, games, movies). Government will likely regulate the use of all of these things as well, making sure no one gets too rich or powerful by using these new technologies.
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