Future of Life Institute Podcast

Ann Pace joins the podcast to discuss the work of Wise Ancestors. We explore how biobanking could help humanity recover from global catastrophes, how to conduct decentralized science, and how to collaborate with local communities on conservation efforts.    You can learn more about Ann's work here:    https://www.wiseancestors.org    Timestamps:   00:00 What is Wise Ancestors?   04:27 Recovering a...

Fr. Michael Baggot joins the podcast to provide a Catholic perspective on transhumanism and superintelligence. We also discuss the meta-narratives, the value of cultural diversity in attitudes toward technology, and how Christian communities deal with advanced AI.    You can learn more about Michael's work here:   https://catholic.tech/academics/faculty/michael-baggot   Timestamps:   00:00 Meta-na...

David "davidad" Dalrymple joins the podcast to explore Safeguarded AI — an approach to ensuring the safety of highly advanced AI systems. We discuss the structure and layers of Safeguarded AI, how to formalize more aspects of the world, and how to build safety into computer hardware.   You can learn more about David's work at ARIA here:    https://www.aria.org.uk/opportunity-spaces/mathematics-for...

Nick Allardice joins the podcast to discuss how GiveDirectly uses AI to target cash transfers and predict natural disasters. Learn more about Nick's work here: https://www.nickallardice.com   Timestamps:  00:00 What is GiveDirectly?  15:04 AI for targeting cash transfers  29:39 AI for predicting natural disasters  46:04 How scalable is GiveDirectly's AI approach?  58:10 Decentralized vs. centraliz...

Nathan Labenz joins the podcast to provide a comprehensive overview of AI progress since the release of GPT-4.  You can find Nathan's podcast here: https://www.cognitiverevolution.ai    Timestamps:  00:00 AI progress since GPT-4   10:50 Multimodality   19:06 Low-cost models   27:58 Coding versus medicine/law   36:09 AI agents   45:29 How much are people using AI?   53:39 Open source   01:15:22 AI...

Connor Leahy joins the podcast to discuss the motivations of AGI corporations, how modern AI is "grown", the need for a science of intelligence, the effects of AI on work, the radical implications of superintelligence, open-source AI, and what you might be able to do about all of this.    Here's the document we discuss in the episode:    https://www.thecompendium.ai   Timestamps:  00:00 The Compen...

Suzy Shepherd joins the podcast to discuss her new short film "Writing Doom", which deals with AI risk. We discuss how to use humor in film, how to write concisely, how filmmaking is evolving, in what ways AI is useful for filmmakers, and how we will find meaning in an increasingly automated world.    Here's Writing Doom:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfMQ7hzyFW4    Timestamps:  00:00 Writing...

Andrea Miotti joins the podcast to discuss "A Narrow Path" — a roadmap to safe, transformative AI. We talk about our current inability to precisely predict future AI capabilities, the dangers of self-improving and unbounded AI systems, how humanity might coordinate globally to ensure safe AI development, and what a mature science of intelligence would look like.    Here's the document we discuss i...

Tamay Besiroglu joins the podcast to discuss scaling, AI capabilities in 2030, breakthroughs in AI agents and planning, automating work, the uncertainties of investing in AI, and scaling laws for inference-time compute. Here's the report we discuss in the episode:   https://epochai.org/blog/can-ai-scaling-continue-through-2030   Timestamps:  00:00 How important is scaling?   08:03 How capable will...

Ryan Greenblatt joins the podcast to discuss AI control, timelines, takeoff speeds, misalignment, and slowing down around human-level AI.  You can learn more about Ryan's work here: https://www.redwoodresearch.org/team/ryan-greenblatt   Timestamps:  00:00 AI control   09:35 Challenges to AI control   23:48 AI control as a bridge to alignment  26:54 Policy and coordination for AI safety  29:25 Slow...

Tom Barnes joins the podcast to discuss how much the world spends on AI capabilities versus AI safety, how governments can prepare for advanced AI, and how to build a more resilient world.    Tom's report on advanced AI: https://www.founderspledge.com/research/research-and-recommendations-advanced-artificial-intelligence    Timestamps:  00:00 Spending on safety vs capabilities  09:06 Racing dynami...

Samuel Hammond joins the podcast to discuss whether AI progress is slowing down or speeding up, AI agents and reasoning, why superintelligence is an ideological goal, open source AI, how technical change leads to regime change, the economics of advanced AI, and much more.    Our conversation often references this essay by Samuel: https://www.secondbest.ca/p/ninety-five-theses-on-ai    Timestamps: ...

Anousheh Ansari joins the podcast to discuss how innovation prizes can incentivize technical innovation in space, AI, quantum computing, and carbon removal. We discuss the pros and cons of such prizes, where they work best, and how far they can scale. Learn more about Anousheh's work here: https://www.xprize.org/home   Timestamps:  00:00 Innovation prizes at XPRIZE  08:25 Deciding which prizes to...

Mary Robinson joins the podcast to discuss long-view leadership, risks from AI and nuclear weapons, prioritizing global problems, how to overcome barriers to international cooperation, and advice to future leaders. Learn more about Robinson's work as Chair of The Elders at https://theelders.org   Timestamps:  00:00 Mary's journey to presidency   05:11 Long-view leadership  06:55 Prioritizing globa...

Emilia Javorsky joins the podcast to discuss AI-driven power concentration and how we might mitigate it. We also discuss optimism, utopia, and cultural experimentation.  Apply for our RFP here:   https://futureoflife.org/grant-program/mitigate-ai-driven-power-concentration/ Timestamps:  00:00 Power concentration   07:43 RFP: Mitigating AI-driven power concentration  14:15 Open source AI   26:50 In...

Anton Korinek joins the podcast to discuss the effects of automation on wages and labor, how we measure the complexity of tasks, the economics of an intelligence explosion, and the market structure of the AI industry. Learn more about Anton's work at https://www.korinek.com   Timestamps:  00:00 Automation and wages  14:32 Complexity for people and machines  20:31 Moravec's paradox  26:15 Can peopl...

Christian Ruhl joins the podcast to discuss US-China competition and the risk of war, official versus unofficial diplomacy, hotlines between countries, catastrophic biological risks, ultraviolet germicidal light, and ancient civilizational collapse. Find out more about Christian's work at https://www.founderspledge.com   Timestamps:  00:00 US-China competition and risk   18:01 The security dilemma...

Christian Nunes joins the podcast to discuss deepfakes, how they impact women in particular, how we can protect ordinary victims of deepfakes, and the current landscape of deepfake legislation. You can learn more about Christian's work at https://now.org and about the Ban Deepfakes campaign at https://bandeepfakes.org  Timestamps: 00:00 The National Organisation for Women (NOW)  05:37 Deepfakes an...

Dan Faggella joins the podcast to discuss whether humanity should eventually create AGI, how AI will change power dynamics between institutions, what drives AI progress, and which industries are implementing AI successfully. Find out more about Dan at https://danfaggella.com Timestamps: 00:00 Value differences in AI 12:07 Should we eventually create AGI? 28:22 What is a worthy successor? 43:19 AI...

Liron Shapira joins the podcast to discuss superintelligence goals, what makes AI different from other technologies, risks from centralizing power, and whether AI can defend us from AI. Timestamps: 00:00 Intelligence as optimization-power 05:18 Will LLMs imitate human values? 07:15 Why would AI develop dangerous goals? 09:55 Goal-completeness 12:53 Alignment to which values? 22:12 Is AI just anoth...

Annie Jacobsen joins the podcast to lay out a second by second timeline for how nuclear war could happen. We also discuss time pressure, submarines, interceptor missiles, cyberattacks, and concentration of power. You can find more on Annie's work at https://anniejacobsen.com Timestamps: 00:00 A scenario of nuclear war 06:56 Who would launch an attack? 13:50 Detecting nuclear attacks 19:37 The firs...

Katja Grace joins the podcast to discuss the largest survey of AI researchers conducted to date, AI researchers' beliefs about different AI risks, capabilities required for continued AI-related transformation, the idea of discontinuous progress, the impacts of AI from either side of the human-level intelligence threshold, intelligence and power, and her thoughts on how we can mitigate AI risk. Fin...

Holly Elmore joins the podcast to discuss pausing frontier AI, hardware overhang, safety research during a pause, the social dynamics of AI risk, and what prevents AGI corporations from collaborating. You can read more about Holly's work at https://pauseai.info Timestamps: 00:00 Pausing AI 10:23 Risks during an AI pause 19:41 Hardware overhang 29:04 Technological progress 37:00 Safety research dur...

Sneha Revanur joins the podcast to discuss the social effects of AI, the illusory divide between AI ethics and AI safety, the importance of humans in the loop, the different effects of AI on younger and older people, and the importance of AIs identifying as AIs. You can read more about Sneha's work at https://encodejustice.org Timestamps: 00:00 Encode Justice 06:11 AI ethics and AI safety 15:49 Hu...

Roman Yampolskiy joins the podcast again to discuss whether AI is like a Shoggoth, whether scaling laws will hold for more agent-like AIs, evidence that AI is uncontrollable, and whether designing human-like AI would be safer than the current development path. You can read more about Roman's work at http://cecs.louisville.edu/ry/ Timestamps: 00:00 Is AI like a Shoggoth? 09:50 Scaling laws 16:41 Ar...