Future of Life Institute Podcast

On this special episode of the podcast, Flo Crivello talks with Nathan Labenz about AI as a new form of life, whether attempts to regulate AI risks regulatory capture, how a GPU kill switch could work, and why Flo expects AGI in 2-8 years. Timestamps: 00:00 Technological progress 07:59 Regulatory capture and AI 11:53 AI as a new form of life 15:44 Can AI development be paused? 20:12 Biden's execut...

Carl Robichaud joins the podcast to discuss the new nuclear arms race, how much world leaders and ideologies matter for nuclear risk, and how to reach a stable, low-risk era. You can learn more about Carl's work here: https://www.longview.org/about/carl-robichaud/ Timestamps: 00:00 A new nuclear arms race 08:07 How much do world leaders matter? 18:04 How much does ideology matter? 22:14 Do nuclear...

Frank Sauer joins the podcast to discuss autonomy in weapon systems, killer drones, low-tech defenses against drones, the flaws and unpredictability of autonomous weapon systems, and the political possibilities of regulating such systems. You can learn more about Frank's work here: https://metis.unibw.de/en/ Timestamps: 00:00 Autonomy in weapon systems 12:19 Balance of offense and defense 20:05 Ki...

Darren McKee joins the podcast to discuss how AI might be difficult to control, which goals and traits AI systems will develop, and whether there's a unified solution to AI alignment. Timestamps: 00:00 Uncontrollable superintelligence 16:41 AI goals and the "virus analogy" 28:36 Speed of AI cognition 39:25 Narrow AI and autonomy 52:23 Reliability of current and future AI 1:02:33 Planning for multi...

Mark Brakel (Director of Policy at the Future of Life Institute) joins the podcast to discuss the AI Safety Summit in Bletchley Park, objections to AI policy, AI regulation in the EU and US, global institutions for safe AI, and autonomy in weapon systems. Timestamps: 00:00 AI Safety Summit in the UK 12:18 Are officials up to date on AI? 23:22 Objections to AI policy 31:27 The EU AI Act 43:37 The r...

Dan Hendrycks joins the podcast again to discuss X.ai, how AI risk thinking has evolved, malicious use of AI, AI race dynamics between companies and between militaries, making AI organizations safer, and how representation engineering could help us understand AI traits like deception. You can learn more about Dan's work at https://www.safe.ai Timestamps: 00:00 X.ai - Elon Musk's new AI venture 02:...

Samuel Hammond joins the podcast to discuss how AGI will transform economies, governments, institutions, and other power structures. You can read Samuel's blog at https://www.secondbest.ca Timestamps: 00:00 Is AGI close? 06:56 Compute versus data 09:59 Information theory 20:36 Universality of learning 24:53 Hards steps in evolution 30:30 Governments and advanced AI 40:33 How will AI transform the...

Are we doomed to a future of loneliness and unfulfilling online interactions? What if technology made us feel more connected instead? Imagine a World is a podcast exploring a range of plausible and positive futures with advanced AI, produced by the Future of Life Institute. We interview the creators of 8 diverse and thought provoking imagined futures that we received as part of the worldbuilding c...

Let’s imagine a future where AGI is developed but kept at a distance from practically impacting the world, while narrow AI remakes the world completely. Most people don’t know or care about the difference and have no idea how they could distinguish between a human or artificial stranger. Inequality sticks around and AI fractures society into separate media bubbles with irreconcilable perspectives....

Steve Omohundro joins the podcast to discuss Provably Safe Systems, a paper he co-authored with FLI President Max Tegmark. You can read the paper here: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2309.01933.pdf Timestamps: 00:00 Provably safe AI systems 12:17 Alignment and evaluations 21:08 Proofs about language model behavior 27:11 Can we formalize safety? 30:29 Provable contracts 43:13 Digital replicas of actual syst...

What if AI allowed us to communicate with animals? Could interspecies communication lead to new levels of empathy? How might communicating with animals lead humans to reimagine our place in the natural world? Imagine a World is a podcast exploring a range of plausible and positive futures with advanced AI, produced by the Future of Life Institute. We interview the creators of 8 diverse and thought...

If you could extend your life, would you? How might life extension technologies create new social and political divides? How can the world unite to solve the great problems of our time, like AI risk? What if AI creators could agree on an inspection process to expose AI dangers before they're unleashed? Imagine a World is a podcast exploring a range of plausible and positive futures with advanced A...

Johannes Ackva joins the podcast to discuss the main drivers of climate change and our best technological and governmental options for managing it. You can read more about Johannes' work at http://founderspledge.com/climate Timestamps: 00:00 Johannes's journey as an environmentalist 13:21 The drivers of climate change 23:00 Oil, coal, and gas 38:05 Solar, wind, and hydro 49:34 Nuclear energy 57:03...

How do low income countries affected by climate change imagine their futures? How do they overcome these twin challenges? Will all nations eventually choose or be forced to go digital? Imagine a World is a podcast exploring a range of plausible and positive futures with advanced AI, produced by the Future of Life Institute. We interview the creators of 8 diverse and thought provoking imagined futu...

What if we had one advanced AI system for the entire world? Would this led to a world 'beyond' nation states - and do we want this? Imagine a World is a podcast exploring a range of plausible and positive futures with advanced AI, produced by the Future of Life Institute. We interview the creators of 8 diverse and thought provoking imagined futures that we received as part of the worldbuilding con...

Tom Davidson joins the podcast to discuss how AI could quickly automate most cognitive tasks, including AI research, and why this would be risky. Timestamps: 00:00 The current pace of AI 03:58 Near-term risks from AI 09:34 Historical analogies to AI 13:58 AI benchmarks VS economic impact 18:30 AI takeoff speed and bottlenecks 31:09 Tom's model of AI takeoff speed 36:21 How AI could automate AI res...

How does who is involved in the design of AI affect the possibilities for our future? Why isn’t the design of AI inclusive already? Can technology solve all our problems? Can human nature change? Do we want either of these things to happen? Imagine a World is a podcast exploring a range of plausible and positive futures with advanced AI, produced by the Future of Life Institute. We interview the c...

Are today's democratic systems equipped well enough to create the best possible future for everyone? If they're not, what systems might work better? And are governments around the world taking the destabilizing threats of new technologies seriously enough, or will it take a dramatic event, such as an AI-driven war, to get their act together? Imagine a World is a podcast exploring a range of plausi...

Coming Soon… The year is 2045. Humanity is not extinct, nor living in a dystopia. It has averted climate disaster and major wars. Instead, AI and other new technologies are helping to make the world more peaceful, happy and equal. How? This was what we asked the entrants of our Worldbuilding Contest to imagine last year. Our new podcast series digs deeper into the eight winning entries, their idea...

Robert Trager joins the podcast to discuss AI governance, the incentives of governments and companies, the track record of international regulation, the security dilemma in AI, cybersecurity at AI companies, and skepticism about AI governance. We also discuss Robert's forthcoming paper International Governance of Civilian AI: A Jurisdictional Certification Approach. You can read more about Robert'...

Jason Crawford joins the podcast to discuss the history of progress, the future of economic growth, and the relationship between progress and risks from AI. You can read more about Jason's work at https://rootsofprogress.org Timestamps: 00:00 Eras of human progress 06:47 Flywheels of progress 17:56 Main causes of progress 21:01 Progress and risk 32:49 Safety as part of progress 45:20 Slowing down...

On this special episode of the podcast, Jaan Tallinn talks with Nathan Labenz about Jaan's model of AI risk, the future of AI development, and pausing giant AI experiments. Timestamps: 0:00 Nathan introduces Jaan 4:22 AI safety and Future of Life Institute 5:55 Jaan's first meeting with Eliezer Yudkowsky 12:04 Future of AI evolution 14:58 Jaan's investments in AI companies 23:06 The emerging dange...

Joe Carlsmith joins the podcast to discuss how we change our minds about AI risk, gut feelings versus abstract models, and what to do if transformative AI is coming soon. You can read more about Joe's work at https://joecarlsmith.com. Timestamps: 00:00 Predictable updating on AI risk 07:27 Abstract models versus gut feelings 22:06 How Joe began believing in AI risk 29:06 Is AI risk falsifiable? 35...

Dan Hendrycks joins the podcast to discuss evolutionary dynamics in AI development and how we could develop AI safely. You can read more about Dan's work at https://www.safe.ai Timestamps: 00:00 Corporate AI race 06:28 Evolutionary dynamics in AI 25:26 Why evolution applies to AI 50:58 Deceptive AI 1:06:04 Competition erodes safety 10:17:40 Evolutionary fitness: humans versus AI 1:26:32 Different...

Roman Yampolskiy joins the podcast to discuss various objections to AI safety, impossibility results for AI, and how much risk civilization should accept from emerging technologies. You can read more about Roman's work at http://cecs.louisville.edu/ry/ Timestamps: 00:00 Objections to AI safety 15:06 Will robots make AI risks salient? 27:51 Was early AI safety research useful? 37:28 Impossibility r...