Future of Life Institute Podcast

Neither Yuval Noah Harari nor Max Tegmark need much in the way of introduction. Both are avant-garde thinkers at the forefront of 21st century discourse around science, technology, society and humanity’s future. This conversation represents a rare opportunity for two intellectual leaders to apply their combined expertise — in physics, artificial intelligence, history, philosophy and anthropology —...

As 2019 is coming to an end and the opportunities of 2020 begin to emerge, it's a great time to reflect on the past year and our reasons for hope in the year to come. We spend much of our time on this podcast discussing risks that will possibly lead to the extinction or the permanent and drastic curtailing of the potential of Earth-originating intelligent life. While this is important and useful,...

Jan Leike is a senior research scientist who leads the agent alignment team at DeepMind. His is one of three teams within their technical AGI group; each team focuses on different aspects of ensuring advanced AI systems are aligned and beneficial. Jan's journey in the field of AI has taken him from a PhD on a theoretical reinforcement learning agent called AIXI to empirical AI safety research focu...

We could all be more altruistic and effective in our service of others, but what exactly is it that's stopping us? What are the biases and cognitive failures that prevent us from properly acting in service of existential risks, statistically large numbers of people, and long-term future considerations? How can we become more effective altruists? Stefan Schubert, a researcher at University of Oxfor...

In this brief epilogue, Ariel reflects on what she's learned during the making of Not Cool, and the actions she'll be taking going forward.

It’s the Not Cool series finale, and by now we’ve heard from climate scientists, meteorologists, physicists, psychologists, epidemiologists and ecologists. We’ve gotten expert opinions on everything from mitigation and adaptation to security, policy and finance. Today, we’re tackling one final question: why should we trust them? Ariel is joined by Naomi Oreskes, Harvard professor and author of sev...

Most Americans believe in climate change — yet far too few are taking part in climate action. Many aren't even sure what effective climate action should look like. On Not Cool episode 25, Ariel is joined by Mario Molina, Executive Director of Protect our Winters, a non-profit aimed at increasing climate advocacy within the outdoor sports community. In this interview, Mario looks at climate activis...

Defunding the fossil fuel industry is one of the biggest factors in addressing climate change and lowering carbon emissions. But with international financing and powerful lobbyists on their side, fossil fuel companies often seem out of public reach. On Not Cool episode 24, Ariel is joined by Ellen Quigley and Natalie Jones, who explain why that’s not the case, and what you can do — without too muc...

Wendell Wallach has been at the forefront of contemporary emerging technology issues for decades now. As an interdisciplinary thinker, he has engaged at the intersections of ethics, governance, AI, bioethics, robotics, and philosophy since the beginning formulations of what we now know as AI alignment were being codified. Wendell began with a broad interest in the ethics of emerging technology and...

Though climate change and global warming are often used synonymously, there’s a different kind of climate change that also deserves attention: nuclear winter. A period of extreme global cooling that would likely follow a major nuclear exchange, nuclear winter is as of now — unlike global warming — still avoidable. But as Cold War era treaties break down and new nations gain nuclear capabilities, i...

Right before civil war broke out in 2011, Syria experienced a historic five-year drought. This particular drought, which exacerbated economic and political insecurity within the country, may or may not have been caused by climate change. But as climate change increases the frequency of such extreme events, it’s almost certain to inflame pre-existing tensions in other countries — and in some cases,...

The increase of CO2 in the atmosphere is doing more than just warming the planet and threatening the lives of many terrestrial species. A large percentage of that carbon is actually reabsorbed by the oceans, causing a phenomenon known as ocean acidification — that is, our carbon emissions are literally changing the chemistry of ocean water and threatening ocean ecosystems worldwide. On Not Cool ep...

This summer, the world watched in near-universal horror as thousands of square miles of rainforest went up in flames. But what exactly makes forests so precious — and deforestation so costly? On the 20th episode of Not Cool, Ariel explores the many ways in which forests impact the global climate — and the profound price we pay when we destroy them. She’s joined by Deborah Lawrence, Environmental S...

There exist many facts about the nature of reality which stand at odds with our commonly held intuitions and experiences of the world. Ultimately, there is a relativity of the simultaneity of events and there is no universal "now." Are these facts baked into our experience of the world? Or are our experiences and intuitions at odds with these facts? When we consider this, the origins of our mental...

Carbon emissions account for about 50% of warming, yet carbon overwhelmingly dominates the climate change discussion. On Episode 19 of Not Cool, Ariel is joined by Ilissa Ocko for a closer look at the non-carbon causes of climate change — like methane, sulphur dioxide, and an aerosol known as black carbon — that are driving the other 50% of warming.  Ilissa is a senior climate scientist with the E...

In many ways, the global carbon budget is like any other budget. There’s a maximum amount we can spend, and it must be allocated to various countries and various needs. But how do we determine how much carbon each country can emit? Can developing countries grow their economies without increasing their emissions? And if a large portion of China’s emissions come from products  made for American and...

It’s time to get creative in the fight against climate change, and machine learning can help us do that. Not Cool episode 17 continues our discussion of “Tackling Climate Change with Machine Learning,” a nearly 100 page report co-authored by 22 researchers from some of the world’s top AI institutes. Today, Ariel talks to Natasha Jaques and Tegan Maharaj, the respective authors of the report’s “Too...

How can artificial intelligence, and specifically machine learning, be used to combat climate change? In an ambitious recent report, machine learning researchers provided a detailed overview of the ways that their work can be applied to both climate mitigation and adaptation efforts. The massive collaboration, titled “Tackling Climate Change with Machine Learning,” involved 22 authors from 16 of t...

Despite the global scale of the climate crisis, its impacts will vary drastically at the local level. Not Cool Episode 15 looks at the unique struggles facing different communities — both human and non-human — and the importance of equity in climate adaptation. Ariel is joined by Astrid Caldas, a senior climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, to discuss the types of climate adaptat...

As the world nears the warming limit set forth by international agreement, carbon emissions have become a costly commodity. Not Cool episode 14 examines the rapidly expanding domain of carbon finance, along with the wider economic implications of the changing climate. Ariel is joined by Filippo Berardi, an environmental management and international development specialist at the Global Environment...

What is ecosystem-based adaptation, and why should we be implementing it? The thirteenth episode of Not Cool explores how we can conserve, restore, and manage natural ecosystems in ways that also help us adapt to the impacts of climate change. Ariel is joined by Val Kapos, Head of the Climate Change and Biodiversity Programme at UN Environment’s World Conservation Monitoring Center, who explains t...

Stuart Russell is one of AI's true pioneers and has been at the forefront of the field for decades. His expertise and forward thinking have culminated in his newest work, Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control. The book is a cornerstone piece, alongside Superintelligence and Life 3.0, that articulates the civilization-scale problem we face of aligning machine intellig...

We know that climate change has serious implications for human health, including the spread of vector-borne disease and the global increase of malnutrition. What we don’t yet know is how expansive these health issues could become or how these problems will impact social stability. On episode 12 of Not Cool, Ariel is joined by Kris Ebi, professor at the University of Washington and founding directo...

While a single extreme weather event can wreak considerable havoc, it's becoming increasingly clear that such events often don't occur in isolation. Not Cool Episode 11 focuses on compound weather events: what they are, why they’re dangerous, and how we've failed to prepare for them. Ariel is joined by Jakob Zscheischler, an Earth system scientist at the University of Bern, who discusses the feedb...

One of the most obvious markers of climate change has been the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events in recent years. In the tenth episode of Not Cool, Ariel takes a closer look at the research linking climate change and extreme events — and, in turn, linking extreme events and socioeconomic patterns. She’s joined by Stephanie Herring, a climate scientist at the National Oce...